Odd Ammonia/Nitrite Readings…

[Zac]

Hey all,

I’ve posted some pictures of my ammonia and nitrite readings.

The ammonia looks yellow, but not quite a bright yellow. Almost like it’s a very very dull green or mustardish yellow

The nitrite looks blue, but not quite a bright blue

Just last the other week I was getting bright yellow and bright blue results. The kits were brand new. I’ve noticed this “problem happening with my old test kit. I rarely ever got the bright colors unless the kit was basically brand new. I’m wondering if it’s due to opening the bottles and them being exposed to moisture or something. The thing is…I don’t know if there’s ACTUALLY ammonia and nitrite in my tank or if it’s a fault with the kit. I added 2 doses of fritzyme last week and it didn’t seem to help.

I did have antibiotics in my tank a couple weeks ago and I’m sure there’s a little bit of residual medicine left over. I’ve done 2 20% water changes and put some carbon in there for about a day since then. Maybe there’s residual meds killing bacteria? I never had any spikes when I was adding the meds. I find it hard to believe that that would be the case. Especially since I’ve added 2 doses of fritzyme.

I have a 30 gallon tank with maybe 20-30guppies and a dwarf gourami and the tank has been up for well over a year. It also has a fair amount of plants. I feed them once a day. Medium sized feedings. Very rarely does good get to the bottom and if it does it’s only a couple pellets or something like that which I have snails that will eat it.

Any feedback on this situation or other’s experience with the API kits would be appreciated

Edited August 4, 2023 by Zac

[Guppysnail]

Tests have a margin of error. Yours are fine. If you start to see the green or purple tinge is when you have enough to start to pay attention to. 

[Galabar]

You can try running the test with tap water (or distilled water) and comparing it to the test with tank water (if you have two test tubes).  Comparing your tank water against a known source that has no ammonia makes things more obvious.  I find that, for the API Ammonia test, it really helps.

[Zac]

On 8/4/2023 at 9:31 PM, Galabar said:

You can try running the test with tap water (or distilled water) and comparing it to the test with tank water (if you have two test tubes).  Comparing your tank water against a known source that has no ammonia makes things more obvious.  I find that, for the API Ammonia test, it really helps.

I did try that once a couple weeks ago with my sink water and the reading stayed the same. I’ll have to try again to see if that’s still the case

[AllFishNoBrakes]

For what it’s worth, your tests read as 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite to my eyes. Continue to test and make sure you don’t have an issue, but 0 looks different from 0.25 in my experience.