phastroh
Do Not Listen To Me!!!
Ok so I emailed Dr. Tim to ask him about his One and Only and explained to him my water situation in my tank.
Basically he said this. Actually this is from the email.
Hello Danny:
Let's see if I can summarize:
You have a small amount of ammonia and nitrite that you want to get to zero
You have a large amount of nitrate that you want to get lower
Also you test kits give a positive value for ammonia and nitrite from your RO water
First - I think your test kits may need replacing. You can buy some distilled water from a grocery store and test it. If the results are positive for ammonia and/or nitrite then the reagent are bad or your plastic tube is really dirty or something else is wrong. It should be zero.
Ok, adding the One & Only Live Nitrifying Bacteria will take care of the ammonia and nitrite. But first you have to make sure you have ammonia and nitrite since your test kits may be bad.
But nitrate will not come down on "its own" - it can only be removed by water changes, denitrification or with other bacteria like the ones in my product called Waste-Away.
Here is what I would recommend -
1) test the test kits with DI water from a store
2) if kits are bad, replace and test again and test tank
3) based on above decide whether to add One & Only to tank
4) no matter the above get some Waste-Away and start a program to reduce nitrate and phosphate (stop using the chemicals). I assume you have a skimmer yes?
Review this and see what you think, I see no need to tear down and start over. Try what I have recommended and try to be patience - results will not happen in a week and your tank will be fine.
regards
DrTim
So I did test the bottle of Distilled water and here are the results.
The Ammonia in the Distilled water seemed to read .5PPM the Nitrite was 0 and the Nitrates were 0.
Now I took tank water and test it along side it since I have a lot of test tubes.
My Ammonia was .150 my Nitrite was .2 and my Nitrate was .40-.50
SO how the heck could the DI water show any Ammonia at all. Even if my Ammonia test Regeant is bad it is still saying the DI water has more than my tank water so what gives.
I have 2 test kits and this is getting to be super crazy.
I thought the Nitrites in the DI water we .1 since it looked powder blue from the side but when I looked down on the tube it had a little green look with it and the 0 is greenish blue and the .1 is light blue.
I give up. I may contact Pet Solutions and ask them to help with these test kits. I had the original since 2.5 months ago and this new one for about 1 month. I doubt they will help but since I didn't know it may be bad maybe.
It is a Red Sea kit so what is the best kit around?
Basically he said this. Actually this is from the email.
Hello Danny:
Let's see if I can summarize:
You have a small amount of ammonia and nitrite that you want to get to zero
You have a large amount of nitrate that you want to get lower
Also you test kits give a positive value for ammonia and nitrite from your RO water
First - I think your test kits may need replacing. You can buy some distilled water from a grocery store and test it. If the results are positive for ammonia and/or nitrite then the reagent are bad or your plastic tube is really dirty or something else is wrong. It should be zero.
Ok, adding the One & Only Live Nitrifying Bacteria will take care of the ammonia and nitrite. But first you have to make sure you have ammonia and nitrite since your test kits may be bad.
But nitrate will not come down on "its own" - it can only be removed by water changes, denitrification or with other bacteria like the ones in my product called Waste-Away.
Here is what I would recommend -
1) test the test kits with DI water from a store
2) if kits are bad, replace and test again and test tank
3) based on above decide whether to add One & Only to tank
4) no matter the above get some Waste-Away and start a program to reduce nitrate and phosphate (stop using the chemicals). I assume you have a skimmer yes?
Review this and see what you think, I see no need to tear down and start over. Try what I have recommended and try to be patience - results will not happen in a week and your tank will be fine.
regards
DrTim
So I did test the bottle of Distilled water and here are the results.
The Ammonia in the Distilled water seemed to read .5PPM the Nitrite was 0 and the Nitrates were 0.
Now I took tank water and test it along side it since I have a lot of test tubes.
My Ammonia was .150 my Nitrite was .2 and my Nitrate was .40-.50
SO how the heck could the DI water show any Ammonia at all. Even if my Ammonia test Regeant is bad it is still saying the DI water has more than my tank water so what gives.
I have 2 test kits and this is getting to be super crazy.
I thought the Nitrites in the DI water we .1 since it looked powder blue from the side but when I looked down on the tube it had a little green look with it and the 0 is greenish blue and the .1 is light blue.
I give up. I may contact Pet Solutions and ask them to help with these test kits. I had the original since 2.5 months ago and this new one for about 1 month. I doubt they will help but since I didn't know it may be bad maybe.
It is a Red Sea kit so what is the best kit around?