First serious problem - very mysterious

[kevinsimons]

Dustin - re: 3 gobies - actually, neither engineer gobies NOR Mandarin Gobies are actually gobies at all - Mandarins are really dragonettes, don't recall what engineer gobies are - but they aren't gobies. Probably why they co-existed so well together.
Fatman: I never found the body of the royal gramma - but honestly think the ammonia reading is erroneous; when I cycled the tank I couldn't get the reading on the Red Sea Master Kit to go below .25 - Biff suggested some kits just never DO show 0 - so I bought a new ammonia test. When all hell broke loose, I got out the new test, but the 2nd bottle had dried up...so I went back to the old Red Sea kit and got the same thing I've always gotten (.25). Bottom line: I don't think I've got ammonia; I think I have a crappy test kit. Everything else tests out perfectly.

[Bifferwine]

Yeah, the engineer goby is referred to as a goby and a blenny, but it's really not either. It doesn't have an official common name, it's the only member of the family Pholidichthyidae.

[fatman]

Test kits can be a pain in the behind. So many kits reach the shelves with old reagents. For a chemist the reagents are so easy to make up, so I have a hard time figuring out why the manufacturers have to make up such large batches as to be selling old stock all the time. Personally. I would rather pay a little more and have fresher reagents. That doesn't seem to be an option though. I have yet to find text that give out recipes routinely for salt water test kits. I have recipes for fresh water tests due to courses I have taken in college, but in general those courses deal with fresh water aquatic systems more than salt water. Even then the test reagent concentrations usually have to be adjusted for the color charts available for commercial test kits as the charts are not given in most text. Now that it is summer and I have no classes I can research the subject more.

[kevinsimons]

I purchased a new ammonia test kit yesterday (API), and as I suspected, the water tested out @ 0.... (API is the best, IMO).