Acceptable parameters?

[LeoneC]

Hi all
I have had my tank up and running for 2 months now. Done a fish in cycle as I wasn't aware of the cycling process when I started. I was using test strips until now. Last week my nitrite seemed to spike so I done 50% water changes every 2 days. I ordered the masterkit and tested this morning. Does everything look back to normal? I have a 125 litre with 3 guppies 6 danios 2 platies 1 pleco. All fish seem very happy

All helpful advice welcome

 

[Essjay]

The really important conditions are ammonia and nitrite and they both look zero in the photo which is great. Any reading above zero needs a water change, as you are aware. Keep an eye on these two, just in case, since you've just had a spike.
Nitrate is nice and low; that's good as well. It should be easy to keep that below 20 ppm.
The pH looks to be roughly 7.0 - you'll be able tell better from the actual tube than from a photo

pH is not as important as GH or general hardness. Does your water company give your hardness on its website?



Edit - I just need to check that you are shaking nitrate bottle #2 and then the tube like the instructions say? Preferably shake the bottle longer than they say. Many people don't realise that the shaking is important and not shaking can give a false reading. Apologies if you already know this!

 

[LeoneC]

The really important conditions are ammonia and nitrite and they both look zero in the photo which is great. Any reading above zero needs a water change, as you are aware. Keep an eye on these two, just in case, since you've just had a spike.
Nitrate is nice and low; that's good as well. It should be easy to keep that below 20 ppm.
The pH looks to be roughly 7.0 - you'll be able tell better from the actual tube than from a photo

pH is not as important as GH or general hardness. Does your water company give your hardness on its website?



Edit - I just need to check that you are shaking nitrate bottle #2 and then the tube like the instructions say? Preferably shake the bottle longer than they say. Many people don't realise that the shaking is important and not shaking can give a false reading. Apologies if you already know this!

Thanks so much for your reply.. Yes I gave the bottle a good shake, I had read about that on this forum before.

I looked up my area online and have attached a screenshot of water information.

 

[Essjay]

That's very soft water. Hardness has several units of measurement as you can see, and fish keeping uses just two of them. The numbers you need are 36.2 mg CaCO3/l - this is the same as ppm - and 2.0 German degrees, which is the same as dH.

The danios and plec will be happy, the platies and guppies less so long term. Hard water fish like guppies and platies have evolved so their bodies excrete most of the hard water minerals they take in from the water. They continue to do this even in soft water so they have less of the minerals in their bodies than they should have. Long term this makes them more susceptible to disease.
You may well find that the guppies and platies don't live as long as the other fish. When they do pass on, can I suggest that they are replaced with soft water fish.

 

[LeoneC]

That's great helpful information. Thank you so much. I will definitely do more research when the time comes and select fish suitable for soft water.