i thik i figured out my bad water params!

ok i did a control test today with freshly mixed RO water and salt. i tested for Nitrite nitrate and ammonia. amonia tested .50 and everything else at 0. can i trust the nitrate and nitrite? or none at all? thanks.

 

are you saying that your water that you use for waterchanges and top off has ammonia at .5ppm?

 

Do you make your own RO water, or get it from somewhere? Can you do another test on just the RO water to make sure there is no problems with your salt?

~Will.

 

no i think my test kits are off. how can i be sure its not the RO water or salt that is putting this in my tank.

 

I would suggest a second opinion from a different ammonia test kit.

 

ok i can try. im stil gonna do my water changes but i will try and get a different test kit.

 

Find out if your water utility uses chloramines instead of chlorine. If so you may need a good DI stage to remove the ammonia since RO doesn't touch it.

 

If you are asking if the other readings are accurate, I would say yes. I think you are saying, if the ammonia is off are the rest off? I would say it is almost impossible for there to be ammonia in RO water. One of the first 2 stages of the unit would eliminate it.

 

Wrong. RO is only marginally effective against ammonia at best. In fact its usually less than 90% effective on nitrates and nitrites. It takes DI to remove ammonia not carbon or RO.

 

from what i've read it is very common for freshly mixed saltwater to have readable amounts of these...

I would recommend letting it aerate or at least just sit with out a lid for 24 hours or so and test again. I bet the ammonia will magically be gone...

At a minimum, I would be interested to see if your results mirror what I've been reading...