Am I Correct?

[kbekll]

do you actually have fish in the tank? or are you adding ammonia

if with fish

when did you last change the water

ammonia will kill fish at that level

nitrate is a bit too low especially if you have plants in their

nitrites are 0 because you have not got enough bacteria to consume the ammonia to make the nitrite and then make the nitrate

test what the water is out of the tap gives you a base rate of what you are using.

if fish in water change time if not dosing time

hth

 

[Joshwainwright]

Yes I have fish in, i last changed the water 2 days ago, thats before just now.

going to test the water again and the tap water...

 

[Joshwainwright]

In my tap water there is 5.0 ppm nitrate and no nitrite...

 

[kbekll]

so your tank is cycling and is still early keep an eye on the nitrites they should rise soon

do you know some one with a tank or a pond if so get some filta media of them and put that in your filter

if not try and ask the lfs some will give you old ones free other wont give you any at all

 

[Joshwainwright]

Nobody I know has a fish tank or pond, I think I'm just going to have to do it the hard way.

 

[Colin_T]

Just done a test on ammonia, nitrite and nitrate, really shocked.
Ammonia = 0.50 ppm
Nitrite = 0.00 ppm
Nitrate = 5.00 ppm
I'm confused.

Nothing to really worry about there. You have a bit of ammonia (less than 1ppm). There is no nitrite, and you have some nitrate in your tap water.
Don't worry about testing for nitrate for a while because it won't change until you get a nitrite reading. Then the nitrate will go up because the test kit will be reading nitrite as nitrate.

Just keep looking after the fish, (feeding them and doing water changes) and in a week or so you should start to get a nitrite reading.

In the mean time you could test the pH of the water. Ammonia is more toxic in alkaline water (pH above 7.0). The higher the pH, the more toxic the ammonia becomes. If the tap water pH is very alkaline, you want to keep the ammonia levels as low as possible to minimise the stress and potential damage to the fish.

 

[Joshwainwright]

The pH of the tankwater is 8.0, just about to test the tap water...

 

[Joshwainwright]

The tapwater pH is 7.8

 

[Tolak]

A common thing with cycling tanks is pH swings. A .2 increase is nothing to worry about, and 7.8-8.0 is fine for the fish you are keeping.

 

[kbekll]

that migh be one reason you have had a few fish go on you cirtain fish like cirtain ph's

 

[Colin_T]

with a high pH (7.8), you want to keep the ammonia level as low as possible. Try to keep it below 0.5ppm, which is about where it is currently.

 

[Joshwainwright]

well, all is on track now

By the way, I'm getting another larger tank in September for my bedroom, a couple of weeks before I set it up should I soak the filters in my current tank and then start a fishless cycle?

 

[Colin_T]

You can run the new filters (from the new tank in September) on your current tank and they will develop some beneficial bacteria. Then after a month or so of running on your current tank, they should be ready to move into the new tank with some fish.

The other you can do is add more filter media to your current filter and this will get the good bacteria living on it over a month or so. Then you move some of this established filter material into the new filter and you have an instant cycled filter on the new tank.

 

[Joshwainwright]

I'm not going to have the same filter though.
I will be having a external filter.

 

[Colin_T]

it doesn't matter what type of filter you use. They all have similar filter media/ materials in them. The bacteria lives on the filter material so you can grow it on a sponge in any filter and then transfer the sponge to another filter.