This doesn't make sense, if nitrite appeared and then went down the nitrates should have risen Also if nitrite appeared then ammonia has to have fallen (even more

Also the elodea which is a fast growing plant should be utilising the ammonia for growth.

I think you are getting a false positive for the ammonia reading.

What would you suggest, chap?

The API ammonia test has been known to read 0.25 in error when there's no ammonia present, but I doubt it would be out by as much as 8ppm.

MissJade, just to rule out any fault with the ammonia test, run a test on a sample of tap water and see what that shows.

Just done one, and it's between 0 and 0.25. More yellow than green.

Am quite perplexed

Not the test then :( Haven't ever used Biomature myself so would hesitate to offer advice I'm afraid.

Do you know how hard your water is? kH in particular would be helpful, but if you don't have the test just go to your supplier's website and look for the "Water Quality" page. Type in your post code and you should get a brief report along with a link to a full report. Look for the hardness figure and let us know what it says.

The water in your area is hard.

To help set your domestic appliances, the water hardness in different units is:
265 mg/l :Calcium Carbonate
106 mg/l :Calcium
18.444 ?C :Degrees Clark
26.5 ?F :Degrees French
15.052 ?dH :Degrees German
2.65 mmol/l :Millimoles

This is what comes up on Anglian water page.





I have had 'white fluff' appear in the last few days on the gravel, and on some ornaments and on my air tubing. Also, it looks like some algae is forming on the glass. Should I leave the lights off?

With that water chemistry there is no reason for this not to have worked. I once read a review where the tester had exactly this situation happen to them. Although Waterlife never reveal what is in their products Biomature is just an ammonia salt and a few other bits to create ideal conditions for a culture to develop. But essentially it is just an ammonia salt.

This is just a thought but did you use Prime to dechlorinate the water when starting this cycle? If so I wonder if it reacted with the biomature to cause this.

I did use Prime...

I don't think it's to do with the Prime personally. Many, many people (including myself before I switched to using RO water) have cycled tanks with ammonia and Prime and I'm sure there are others who've used Biomature in combination with Prime.....