[Tbonedawg08]

Anyone else stare at these things for ever and eventually just shake their heads and pic one? The longer I look at them, the crazier I get. :wink2:

#cycling4ever

 

[jrill]

Go with your first impression.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

 

[Straight shooter]

Welcome to testing at hobbyist level. Mostly inaccurate and vague at best.

 

[WaterLife]

Yeah, on the harder to distinguish tests I just decipher what may be the lowest possible reading and the highest possible reading if the color could be seen as multiple different levels, then I sort of pic a color/level inbetween the high and low (sometimes when I do that though, I do narrow down what the color more likely resembles.

From your pic, for ammonia, I would say, ehhh, maybe .5-1ppm, nitrite .25ppm, nitrate pretty much 0ppm (has a little orange tinge though). Lighting makes a difference though.
How long you been cycling for? Know your temperature and pH?

 

[Tbonedawg08]

Temp is around 80-82*F (just until it's done cycling) and the PH seems to be around 7.6

 

[WaterLife]

Those params are good where they are at. How long have you been cycling for? If your nitrates are going up, you are getting close to conpleting the cycle.

For future reference, you can dose Tetra SafeStart or Dr. Tim's One and Only to speed up the cycle (they already have nitrifying bacteria culture in the bottle).

 

[Tbonedawg08]

Just a couple weeks now. I've started checking daily and my ammonia has reduced since yesterday but everything else seems to have stayed the same. I'm sure it'll be another week or so.