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pH and cycling a new system

I wanted to start another discussion thread to keep from hijacking Patrick's "Clarification of pH" thread. :)

I dosed 4 oz of ammonia yesterday and took readings again today:

pH 7.4 (down from 7.8)

Temp 79 degrees

Ammonia 0.25ppm

Nitride 0.5ppm

Nitrate 40ppm! (Up from 10ppm)

I foliage fed 1 Tbl of Biomin Iron to my plants yesterday with the addtion of 4 oz of Ammonia. I am wondering if this possibly caused my nitrates to shoot up or is this due to the fact that my pH is starting to scale down from 8.2 down to 7.4 over the past week. Is the lowering pH unlocking more nutrient and that is what I am seeing through the tests?

Several things have occurred recently with my system. I received some "inoculated rock" with worms from Rob Nash to place into my two grow beds. He also was kind enough to give me about 4.5 gallons of Talapia "poo" water. I am about 3 weeks into my cycle and after placing this in my tank, I believe it has kicked the system into over-drive. I added all this to my system about 5 days ago.

Also, my API test kit is old (several years) because I have an aquarium in my house. Do these bottles expire?

I am thinking I am still uncycled now that the nitrite seems to be going up. I never saw a nitrite spike so perhaps I am not as far into the cycling as I previously thought.

Any comments/observations would be highly appreciated.

thanks!

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