Correct Water Stats And Proper Testing Kit

[Angie_B]

Hi,

I am new to all this and I have a 100 litre tank with two plattys and three potentially poorly Danios (think velvet) which I am treating them for at the moment.

I bought a test kit called Nutrafn essential Mini Master (cost £17) but I noticed when people are giving their water stats, they have broader ranges than me to quote.

I have just used the kit to test my water and I think my test results are as follows;

PH 7.50 to 8
Nitrit kind of between 0.1 and 0.30 band
Nitrat 5
Amonia showed zero, but as evening maybe slight colouration I couldn't tell, if anything it was very pale.

My question is, is there a more accurate testing kit available that someone could recommend and secondly are my stats ok???

I have done a search on here, to save asking the same question again, but it seems to bring a broad range of non related topics back.

Many thanks for any advice offered.

 

[n3ont3tra]

Stats don't seem too bad. Is your tank newly set up? It sounds like your tank may not be quite cycled. Ammonia and nitrites should always be zero. However, it seems like the levels are so low that they won't be a problem to your fish.

 

[waterdrop]

The Nutrafin MiniMaster is a good test kit. Even though you've given your test results, knowing how to interpret them will depend on knowing exactly how long the tank has been set up. It will also be important to tell the members exactly what you are putting into the tank to treat your fish problem and any other things you are putting in or have put in in the past.

Let us know those answers and I'm sure some member will come along with further help.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Angie_B]

Hello,

thank you for your replies.

My tank is new, just 4 weeks old. Currently I am using Interpet Velvet treatment, as the Danios I have started showing symtoms as soon as I added them (although I thought it was fish TB until the sprinking of gold appeared). I don't think it helped I gave them a treat of brine shrimp, as it was soon after this one of the Danios developed a swollen tummy.

I was worried about the nitrate level of 5 as the book doesn't really indicate what it should be.

I am doing regular water changes at the moment in a hope of eradicating the parasites and making sure the amonia levels etc are kept to a minimum. I also added the live bacteria to the filter, but for some reason the little capsules didn't dissolve like they were meant to.


As a general guidance then all test results should be 0, if not do a water change?

Thank you for your replies, much appreciated.

 

[waterdrop]

Angie, I'm afraid you are go find yourself joining the ranks of beginners we see here many times per week that have come to the new hobby with the best intentions but have not had access to the core skills of the hobby that really need to be known, ideally, prior to starting a tank.

The subject of "cycling" and "bacteria" is much more important and requires much more attention usually than the retail stores would ever have you believe. Unfortunately, with rare exception, bottled bacteria almost never helps a tank to cycle faster per the reports of many hobbyists.

When you buy a filter it is really a kit of raw hardware that needs many weeks of preparation before it will be ready to turn the aquarium into an environment that can support fish. The modern biofilter is quite an interesting story of biology. Given the right conditions, we grow two specific species of bacteria (out of all the hundreds of freshwater bacteria species that are out there) and these two form a system that can execute what we call the nitrogen cycle.

Unlike our lungs which put out CO2, a fishes gills put out Ammonia. Fish respiration, fish waste, excess food and plant debris all either are, or break down into, ammonia. Ammonia, even in small amounts causes permanent damage to fish gills and leads to death. The first species of bacteria we grow eats ammonia and produces nitrite (NO2).

Nitrite (NO2) is also very deadly to fish. It takes up position on the hemoglobin molecules in fish blood and blocks out oxygen, leading to suffocation and permanent nerve damage. The second species of bacteria we grow eats nitrite (NO2) and produces nitrate (NO3). Nitrate is not nearly as bad for fish and can be easily diluted with weekly water changes.

Once the nitrogen cycle is understood, it becomes clear why the procedure of Fishless Cycling becomes so important. It is the way to prepare both bacterial species and have them fully functioning prior to any introduction of fish. In fishless cycling the aquarist is free to make water adjustments that optimize the bacterial growth because fish are not there.

When fish are placed in an un-cycled aquarium, we are forced into a bad situation we call a Fish-In cycle. Although it often leads to the fish dying, sometimes an aquarist feels there is no other way out because they did not know about fishless cycling before they started.

In Fish-In cycling, we usually have to perform many, many water changes in order to manually perform the funtion of a biofilter: Each morning and evening when you perform your ammonia, nitrite and pH tests, you'll need to perform one or more water changes with the goal of keeping both ammonia and nitrite as close to zero as possible. These comments presume your tap water has zero ammonia. Try to keep the ammonia and nitrite below 0.25ppm. If you perform, say, a 50% water change and the level is still 0.25 or above, you can perform another change after an hours wait. Re-testing should also wait until the hour is past. With repeated measuring and testing you will get the feel for what size and how many water changes are needed for your particular tank and fish load. Its different for everybody.

As you can imagine, Fish-In cycling can be a long hard process, but the members here can be a help all along the way, so good luck. It takes about 4 weeks for a fish-in cycle and you will know when its about over when your ammonia and nitrite results stay at zero without a water change for two days running.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Angie_B]

Hi, thank you so much for the explanation. I guess most of us fall foul of advice from the shops we buy our tanks from. My shop assured me a week was safe as long as not too many fish were added. I guess all they wanted is money and don't much care for fish welfare.

I am doing water changes frequently and will do anything necessary to keep my little fish alive. I am gutted I have already lost some. So basically all stats should be zero anything else is toxic.

Thank you for explaning it all to me.

 

[Corleone]

NitrAte doesn't have to be zero - just ammonia and nitrite. Some level of nitrate is normal in a mature tank. It's possible but unusual to have 0 in freshwater. Nitrate's harmful range varies by fish. Some can survive several hundred ppm, others need it below 20. Mine is usually around 20 with weekly water changes, and my tank is stocked at about 1.7" per gallon.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, couldn't have said it better. My tank also has nitrates that hover around 20 or so.

The beauty of nitrate (NO3) is that it is not so toxic to most fish and, as the final chemical wrapping up the toxicity in the nitrogen cycle, can be left in the water and diluted by the weekend water change.

Nitrate (NO3) also serves a second, completely different function in that aquarists use it as a "marker" of sorts, like a reminder, to do those water changes, which are essential for removing entirely different things: trace metals and organics, which constitute all sorts of things that would be too expensive and difficult to measure but which must not be allowed to build up over time or our tanks will suffer "old tank syndrome."

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yup agree with everything that's been said above.

just a few quick notes, run a test on your tap water and note what the levels are, helps to know what baseline you're working from. some people have tap water with 40ppm of nitrate, some people even have 0.5ppm of ammonia in their tap water, these factors will affect what you're goals are during this water change period so if you can run a test on the tap water and post it here then we can give any tailored advice to your conditions if needs be.

The other thing to remember is that one set of readings gives a snapshot which is useful to us, but a few days of readings gives a trend which is much much more valuable to us when diagnosing problems. So I'd advise you to test the water at least once a day, every 12 hours if possible and keep a log of your readings, post them up here every couple of days or if you think anything is going wrong and we'll be able to give much better advice based on your situation if we've got a trend of readings to go from. Also keep note of anything else like the days you doed any medicine, volumne and frequency of water changes each day and so on.

Diagnosing over the internet can be hard sometimes, the more info you can get us the better chance we have of correctly identifying the problem. So particularly while cycling a log of your tank's progress is invaluable to us.

For a bit fo further reading on the cycling process have a read of the link in my sig 'whats cycling'

 

[Angie_B]

HELP!!!!

I have been trying to treat for Velvet with my Danios. Tonight after being in the dark now for a few days, they still are covere in like a gold dust but the platties are now showing sighs of distress, swimming up and down in the filter bubble stream.

I have just done water stats as follows,

Nitrit 0.3
Amonia 0
Ph between 7.5 - 8.0
Nitrate 5


I am not sure if it is the velvet parasite. Yesterday I did two big bucket water change, took about 25% out of the tank. added a bit of salt and then some more treatment.

Swimming up and down in the bubbles could this be too much salt?

Should I do another water change.

I really don't know what else to do,

Is my Nitrit reading too high???

My Danios started flicking, as soon as I put the light on to check them, so I am guessing even with the Interpet meds in the water, it is being ineffective. I have been treating now for over a week with interpet, should I give up and find something else?

I am scared I am going to lose them (

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, your nitrite (NO2) is too high and your action (25% water change) was far too little. Especially when you see both a number too high (like the .3, which goes above our trigger point of .25 worst case) -and- you see negative symptoms in your fish, like a disease and/or flicking, then you need to always start with a 50% water change and then not hesitate to repeat with yet another 50% an hour later if the tests an hour later still look like you haven't accomplished enough. It is always surprising how persistant the bad stuff seems to be despite what seem like big water changes.

Its important to understand that the disease will further weaken the fish and the water changes may not be able to bring them back, but doing the water changes is always the firstline course of action, just like getting a person out of a burning building prior to medical treatment.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Angie_B]

My test kit, only has 0.1 or the next level being 0.30 and it wasn't quite 0.30, as it was a very pale tinge of pink. (I wish they had a digital reading or something, would make it easier).

The water change took out about a 1/3 after repeating it again tonight, but i did a further few bucket loads until half the tank was empty.

I think I need to take the plants out as they are dying and this prob isn't helping the water.

All the fish look lively, the Danios seem to like the bubbles from pouring the water back in.

Thank you for your advice. I will do another test in an hour and hopefully this may have reduced the levels down a bit.


Anyone know of a good syphon, my one is useless and I am sure it's not healthy sucking on a pipe which has been in a tank, even after washed.

In addition, I have an old tank in my garage that hasnt been used for some time. Reading other posts, I think I read I need to wash it out with a bleach solution. I am going to try and get this one up and running and hopefully cycle it in time, and then clean my other one out, to get rid of the velvet parasite.

Thanks again for all your help.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, a lot of fish, especially danios, really enjoy water changes.. lots of excitement. In fact, when I gravel clean I really keep an eye on my danios so they won't explore right on up the siphon and get sucked all the way down the hall to my safety bucket!

Dying plants can create a large extra ammonia load of course. Better to make a somewhat earlier decision and get them out of there sometimes (although, be aware that some plants will lose all their leaves but will grow new leaves from the roots and crown.) At four weeks, it could easily be that you have enough A-Bacs to process a lot of ammonia, but just not enough N-Bacs to process the resulting nitrite (NO2.)

For doing water changes, I and many others here use a device called a Python (there are probably other brands too) that might work well for you. The main feature of these things is a clever valve that attaches to your sink faucet and when the faucet is turned on it uses the valve to create a suction that pulls water out of the tank to the sink via a long hose. I don't actually use this valve very often but I like the nice brass adapters the company has to adapt your sink faucet to the hoses which are available in many lengths and with many gravel cleaning attachments. The Python more or less eliminates the use of buckets.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Miss Wiggle]

nfortunately velvet is a pretty grim parasite which is very tricky to get rid of even with correct medications, to stand any chance of getting shot of it and saving the fish you need pristine water, so ammonia and nitrite need to be 0 at all time and nitrate under 20 if possible.

You're first priority should be getting the tank cycled, do you know any fishkeepers near you that you could get some mature filter media from? It would make the world of difference and this should be a big priority for you. There's a link in my sig for forum members who are happy to donate some so have a look through in case there's someone near you.

I don't mean to be negative, but we have a duty to be realistic with our advice. Unless you can get the cycle sorted you stand very little chance of getting shot of the velvet as it is a pretty nasty parasite.

 

[Angie_B]

Thank you both so much for your advice.

The Danios seem to have gold fins, one has like a gold body and is obviously more infected than the others. The treatment has made no difference at all and I am wondering if the shop gave me the right size of tank.

I did a 50% water change yesterday, but tonight on checking my nitrit level is still in the second band of 0.3
Amonia 0
PH 7.5
Nitrate 5.

So I am going to do another big water change, although the shop today advised me not to as I am removing the good bacteria. I can't seem to get my nitrit level down.

Unfortunately I live in a small village and don't know any other fish keepers.

I will get my other tank going, have also bought some treatment that is meant to encourage healthy bacteria growth. (Easy Balance)

Whilst in the shop, I asked if there was another treatment apart from Interpet 7 and they recommended, Waterlife Protozin.

She reommended two water changes of about 25% then add the new treatment, do you think she was right?

I feel so guilty at making the fish suffer through my ignorance and I am really cross at the shops for recommending fish after only one week cycling, the labels were all over the tanks in the new shop I went in to today. It's irresponsible.