July 26, 2006
Day 3
Well, shoot. For one, my crypts look a little worse - but I'm just going to give them time and not mess with them and let them self-correct a bit.
More troubling, it appears the bacteria in my Eco-Complete were dead. Here are my readings from this evening, before I bumped the ammonia back up to 5 ppm:
Ammonia: 3.0 ppm
Nitrite: 0.0 ppm
Nitrate: 0.0 ppm
(I'm assuming the plants ate the ammonia, given the lack of Nitrites...or that they ate the nitrites)
pH: 7.8
The pH was a bit of a surprise - though not once I thought about the ammonia content (ammonia is basic, right?).
Well, looks like I'm in for a full cycle - I need to get some more plants in to help speed that along...and I'm bumping the temp up to 84 degrees. |