Toxivec inconclusive

Putting it nicely.

A nitrite reading of approximately .15-.25 appeared yesterday. I'm doing a 1/5 water change right now. It appears this sera stuff is about as useful as Cycle.

I poured out about half a gallon of the tank water, dropped in some toxivec, then tested for nitrites. Same results as the untreated water in the tank. This may mean one of two things. One, it simply changes the nitrite into a harmless form, or two, it does nothing at all.

Bad news is the ray is showing signs of minor injury. One eye is half scarlet as if he had jammed it against something (very likely), and a few of his gill slots look mildly inflamed.

Good news is there is absolutely no ammonia now.

I may compile these ray blog entries into an article about tank cycling. Granted, if I had started from scratch, my numbers would have been nowhere near as nice as they were (ammonia never topped over 1 ppm), but this mini-cycle is very close to the real thing and is surely taking as long as the real deal.

Going to go back to feeding every other day and bidaily water changes.

Josh
joshday.com