Ammonia Readings

[dragonfish]

Does anyone know if fresh vs. salt water test kits would read differently?

 

[arkmann]

Bringing a water sample to my LFS defeats the purpose of a master test kit. Does anyone have a link to ammonia levels that equates to colors?

 

[Dr Joe]

No, manufacturer's have there own distinct color codes.

Two ways to get your answer:

1) Calculate it yourself... Take a known amount of water and add ammonia till you get a simular reading.

2) Call the manufacturer of your test kit and ask them.

I' sure that once you go beyond the capability of the test strip there could be a wide range of findings.

A fishless cycle formula came vary greatly from the quality of your ammonia. Old ammonia that the cap has been left off of could be .5-2%, household quality 4-10%, and commercial quality 28%.

Best to do a fishless cycle by adding ammonia to the tank slowly till you have a reading of approx, 5%. Use this measurement daily till the nitrite spikes then reduce the amount by half for the rest of the cycle.

Hope this answered your question...the advice was for my benefit.

Dr Joe

.

 

[johnptc]

I'm in the 9th day of my fishless cycling. From what I have read, the ideal ammonia readings for a fishless cycling would be 5 ppm. In my case, I think I added way more ammonia that is needed to achieve the 5ppm reading. My marine lab test kit only goes up to 7.5ppm ammonia reading which is the dark green color.

When testing the ammonia levels, the color that I am getting is dark blue which is off the range that is indicated in the card.

Can anyone help me regarding what a dark blue ammonia readig amounts to? I did a search on MFK as well as Google but I didn't come up with anything regarding my reading.

My current nitrite reading is 0.2 coiming from 0.05 two days ago. Hopefully I am a third to my cycling but the ammonia readings are still "dark blue."

Thanks!

take a water sample from tank and mix 50/50 with ammonia free water

test the mixture..double the result to calculate the level in your tank.....
if its still off scale mix it 50/50 as before and then again 50/50 retest and multiply by four for tank level etc.....

 

[Dr Joe]

Or you could reverse engineer it .

 

[johnptc]

Or you could reverse engineer it .

all roads lead to rome...........

 

[arkmann]

No, manufacturer's have there own distinct color codes.

Two ways to get your answer:

1) Calculate it yourself... Take a known amount of water and add ammonia till you get a simular reading.

2) Call the manufacturer of your test kit and ask them.

I' sure that once you go beyond the capability of the test strip there could be a wide range of findings.

A fishless cycle formula came vary greatly from the quality of your ammonia. Old ammonia that the cap has been left off of could be .5-2%, household quality 4-10%, and commercial quality 28%.

Best to do a fishless cycle by adding ammonia to the tank slowly till you have a reading of approx, 5%. Use this measurement daily till the nitrite spikes then reduce the amount by half for the rest of the cycle.

Hope this answered your question...the advice was for my benefit.

Dr Joe

.

What took you so long Dr. Joe? What I am thinking of doing is calling the manufacturer and find out the equivalent range based from the color, directly from the manfacturer. At the moment, the color is off the color scale. I am not using a test strip by the way.

At the moment, I guess I can assume that I have extremely high ammonia levels and I just wanted to know how high it is.

 

[arkmann]

take a water sample from tank and mix 50/50 with ammonia free water

test the mixture..double the result to calculate the level in your tank.....
if its still off scale mix it 50/50 as before and then again 50/50 retest and multiply by four for tank level etc.....

Great advice, will defnitely try it tonight. I will test 1 gallon from the fish tank and 1 gallon tap water that is treated with AmQuel. My tank is 60 gallons. How do I determine my ammonia levels from the size of my tank??

 

[johnptc]

Great advice, will defnitely try it tonight. I will test 1 gallon from the fish tank and 1 gallon tap water that is treated with AmQuel. My tank is 60 gallons. How do I determine my ammonia levels from the size of my tank??

all you need is a 1/4 cup of each ( tank and bottled water ) dont add any chemicals imo some tests are thrown off by them

 

[arkmann]

So I get a sample from the 1/2 cup of tank water and bottled water combined, test it for ammonia and that will give me the ammonia levels for my tank in PPM?