the 210

[fshfrk]

EK- yea in the morning I'm pulling 5 over flow sponges and putting them in a couple of panty hose. tie them off and put them in high flow areas, should do the same thing' right?

[eklikewhoa]

Squeeze some dirty sponge from your other tanks to help jump start the benificial bacteria.

When you do this you will start to get the rest of the Nitrogen cycle showing up on the test kit very quickly. Also it keeps you from limiting the strain of bacteria being established.

[fshfrk]

ammonia still at .5 so I just added 150 drops got ammonia to 2 ppm. will test again tomorrow.

[fshfrk]

I bought one yesterday all 0808. I tested for ammonia and with 48 drops it was only.5 ppm. so I added 30 more drops. will test for ammonia again tonight. not showing any nitrITES yet.

[Zulaab]

Well just looked up my API kit.. mine are all 0503 and one bottle 0903.. which means they are all trash too :(

[TaTeR ToT]

Nice setup!

[Zulaab]

Interesting find.
What is a Part Per Million?
A part per million (ppm) refers to "one in a million". It is equivalent to one drop in 18 gallons.
So for a 210 with a 10g used sump (lets just call it 220g total water)

You should put 25 drops of pure ammonia in the tank to get a 2.0ppm reading and in about 10 days from now you should be seeing a 0.0 ppm reading.

How much you put in total ???

[Zulaab]

Yeah be careful, because one of the two stores carry fresh the other store is where I found a 2003 kit...

[eklikewhoa]

I buy the API from Petco/PetsMart... forget which but I have found them to have the freshest kits and fairly priced too.

[fshfrk]

jesper- I added 20 drops last night. then tested for ammonia. nothing yet. I think you are right. tonight I will add a tablespoon. my API master test kit is 2 yrs old. I was looking at the codes on the bottles and the last digits are 0403 and 0504. think I will buy a new one this week. who has a fresh test kit in this city?

[Zulaab]

Fshfrk -- you should add all of your ammonia at once, as it will make the bacteria grow quicker.. You will need to wait for about 12 days from the day you last time added ammonia to introduce fish into the tank. Now in 12 days from now you can fill the tank to the max with fish as there is more bacteria there than a tank full of fish will ever produce ammonia wise.

[fshfrk]

added 15 more drops of ammonia last night. going to take every established over flow sponge in the house drop into a panty hose leg and tie knot. then float in a high flow area in the tank. I put established bio wheels on the tank this morning.

[fshfrk]

added 12 drops of pure ammonia tonight. put 2 brand new emp 400's on the tank. took the spray bars out. will do the bypass mod tomorrow. Will use established filter pads from other tanks. probably wrap these pads in panty hose to try and keep the mts out. All it takes is 1 of these AH's. will use 4 establised bio wheels to try and help cycle the tank. test & test again. hopefully start dumping pond fish in next week.

[fshfrk]

I need to thank my IT guy Lifeguard6t9 for the pics.

[Lifeguard6t9]

Awesome pictures...