rubadudbdub
Member
- Joined
- 27 Oct 2015
- Messages
- 143
Our water butt water has a slight yellow tinge and has traces of nitrite and ammonia in it.
It has been installed for about 3 weeks, coinciding with the end of the sunny weather. The first few showers filled it half full and I emptied it from half to a quarter (the tap doesn't sit at the bottom) twice to wash out contaminants. I presumed that after prolonged hot weather there would be more dust and debris washed down than usual.
A week later after a huge down pour I tested the water and it had a low level of nitrite. I figured the downpour had washed bird droppings or similar in. A week later it still has the same trace of nitrite. Somewhere between the numerically impossible <0.3mg/l yellow colour and 0.3mg/L faint orange colour on the tetra test. I borrowed an ammonia kit and it also has a trace of ammonia, 0.25mg/l according to the test kit.
What would people advise I do to get the ammonia and nitrite down? My plan was to follow advice on here and chuck some grass cuttings and daphnia in. Would the grass cuttings provide a little more substrate for bacteria that will clear the ammonia, or should I just wait longer? The nitrite doesn't seem to have changed after a week.
Is the yellow tinge common, or should I worry about it being fish/shrimp safe? Before I thought about testing I emptied ~150 litres of this water into an 800 litre goldfish pond to replace evaporation. They seem to have survived.
It has been installed for about 3 weeks, coinciding with the end of the sunny weather. The first few showers filled it half full and I emptied it from half to a quarter (the tap doesn't sit at the bottom) twice to wash out contaminants. I presumed that after prolonged hot weather there would be more dust and debris washed down than usual.
A week later after a huge down pour I tested the water and it had a low level of nitrite. I figured the downpour had washed bird droppings or similar in. A week later it still has the same trace of nitrite. Somewhere between the numerically impossible <0.3mg/l yellow colour and 0.3mg/L faint orange colour on the tetra test. I borrowed an ammonia kit and it also has a trace of ammonia, 0.25mg/l according to the test kit.
What would people advise I do to get the ammonia and nitrite down? My plan was to follow advice on here and chuck some grass cuttings and daphnia in. Would the grass cuttings provide a little more substrate for bacteria that will clear the ammonia, or should I just wait longer? The nitrite doesn't seem to have changed after a week.
Is the yellow tinge common, or should I worry about it being fish/shrimp safe? Before I thought about testing I emptied ~150 litres of this water into an 800 litre goldfish pond to replace evaporation. They seem to have survived.