Daily tests: day 4

This morning’s test results were:

• ammonia: 3-4 ppm

I am planning to start testing nitrite from tomorrow, because changes in nitrite at the start of the cycle will be more noticeable than ammonia as 1 ppm of processed ammonia will produce 2.7 ppm of nitrite, which means a 0.1 ppm drop in ammonia should result in a 0.27 reading of nitrite, which I will be able to read as 0.25 ppm from the test. The colour charts for the tests usually show 0, 0.25, 0.5, 1, 2, 4 ppm readings, or similar, so in the higher ranges, differences in the readings are more difficult to distinguish. This is also one of the reasons I have had trouble reading off the ammonia: the chart shows a colour reading for 2 ppm and 4 ppm, so I am having to guess as my reading is somewhere in between the two.