Bad Water Readings

[ecowell89]

Hi,
 
I have recently set up a new tank, it was running for 2 weeks before I added fish. 3 weeks ago I added 2 platy and 3 penguin tetra, 1 platy was not quite right when she first went in the tank and unfortunately died 2 days later, which I put down to stress. (There is also 2 live plants in the tank and some tiny snails which seem to have snuck in!) The others have been fine since however in the last couple of days the other platy has started laying at the bottom of the tank and hardly moves, so I got some water testing strips and took the readings which seemed to have come out quite bad, I just need to know what would be best to do.
 
the tank is approx. 60 litres, the readings came up with too much of the below:
 

• NO3
• GH
• KH
• PH

the instructions on the water testing kit said to do a partial water change (what % would you advise?), add distilled water (how much?) and add Tetra PH/KH Minus.
 
basically I just want to check how much of the above I would do, and if there is anything else you can suggest?
 
any help would be appreciated!
 
thank you,
Emma
 
 

 

[Blondielovesfish]

Have a read up on here:
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/277264-beginners-resource-center/

 

[fluttermoth]

 Exactly how high are the ammonia and nitrite reading?
 
Don't use distilled water, just use tap water that's warmed and dechlorinated. You don't need add anything to change the pH or hardness; it's better for your fish to leave those alone.
 
I would do at least 50%, but if your ammonia or nitrite are over 1ppm, you'll need to do an 80 or 90% one.

 

[ecowell89]

If I'm honest I don't quite understand how to read the resting strips but the colour matches the '100' mark, the next and highest mark is 250.
 
thank you,
Emma.

 

[Mamashack]

It sounds like our tank wasn't fully cycled before you added fish. It takes far longer than 2 weeks to achieve (usually in the region of 6-8 weeks) and you need to add aquatic-use ammonia (Kleenoff) to a fishless tank to encourage growth of the bacteria responsible for removing the toxins otherwise you are no further into the cycle than when you started.
Test STRIPS are notoriously inaccurate - liquid tests are much more accurate. You'll need to get one each for ammonia, nitrIte and nitrAte.
If you can't take the fish back to the place you bought them until the tank in cycled in the method described you are going to need to do at least once daily water changes for quite some time until the tank cycles with the fish in. Unfortunately this is necessary because the ammonia which kick starts the process is harmful to fish. However the water changes will slow down the process considerably and it may be 4 months or more before there are sufficient bacteria to cope.
It's never a good idea to mess with the pH as even experts find it difficult. The only intervention would be doing a water change which very often corrects the pH safely.
Useful readings would be ammonia, nitrIte and nitrAte in ppm.
Do read the beginners resource centre article on fish-in cycle that Blondie recommended - fluttermoth has the link in her signature too

 

[the_lock_man]

THe specific part you need to read is linked to directly in the green link in my signature.