Acidic Water With Nitrate Traces 0.5-Help!

[pandamonium86]

I cycled the tank and left it for 10 days before i put the fish in. fish have been in 7 days now and when i tested the water this morning all was fine, but i changed the water this afternoon (10%) of the water and added some General tonic and now the water is tested nitrate trace positive, 0.5 NO2 and 20 NO3 also its testing highly acidic- 6 ph. im worried as it was showing no nitrates earlier and a ph of 7.5 and this was just 3 hours ago. the fish seemt o be spending a lot of time near the top of the tank. is this related and how can i change the ph back? also why has this happened? did i use too much tap safe or too much of the general tonic? im really worried now if the fish will be upset by this. should i change some more of the water to rectify the situation or buy another solution? or will it take care itself in time. keeping gold fish is really a lot harder than i realised, but im not giving up any time soon!

 

[Mikaila31]

How exactly did you cycle the tank before hand? and did you do anything during those 10 days like maintaining the cycle?

Also what is the pH of your tap water? Though from the sounds of it you likely have soft water.

 

[pandamonium86]

well i wasnt really told much about cycling- this is a term ive come to learn only this past few days, but i had the filter on and put tap safe in and it ran for approximately 10 days without the fish. when i added the fish i added a plant and these have all been in situe for 7 days. i have not done anything to the water since the fish were put in. today was the first water change, and i added approximately 1l of clean water which had tap safe and had been left at room temperature for 24 hours. i also put tonic. maybe the too together in only 1l of water was too much? the fish keep floating to the top and having to swim down, by now they would normally be near the bottom asleep.in particular the black moor appear to be struggling to stay down. is this likely to be related to the ph? and should i change water more or again? my water is hard i think it scored 180 on GH and KH. i have some stress zyme with good bacteria is this any use? i have re done the test holding the stick lower in the water and it came up 7 for ph. can it be different in different areas of the tank? and if so do i just need to mix the water better?