First Test Results

[dumla]

Having brought my 1st tropical aquarium on friday, i decided to take a sample of water down to my local aquatic shop to test, the results are as follows:


Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0.1
Nitrate: -5
pH: 8.0


Are these good? Do i have to do anything?

Thanks


EDIT: Here's a pic of the results sheet the the local shop gave me

 

[kcharley]

Having brought my 1st tropical aquarium on friday, i decided to take a sample of water down to my local aquatic shop to test, the results are as follows:


Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0.1
Nitrate: -5
pH: 8.0


Are these good? Do i have to do anything?

Thanks

Do you have any fish in the tank?

Sorry to answer a question with a question bbbbuuuttt the answer depends on whether you have fish in the tank and whether you have a cycled filter.

If you have fish in the tank, ammonia of zero is good, nitrite of .1 isn't bad but the ideal is zero. I have no idea of how you get a negative nitrate reading. Somebody smarter than me has to handle that one. The important thing about ph is to keep it relatively stable as most fish can adapt to less than ideal, for their species, ph but sudden swings in ph can be fatal.

The real question as I see it, is do you have a cycled filter? If you don't know what cycling is, the pinned threads explain it. It is very important to the health of the fish as it is the means of processing toxic ammonia and nitrite into relatively safe nitrate.

 

[dumla]

I started cycling without fish when i brought the tank on friday, having taken this sample down to the shop, i was told i could introduce fish (some barbs?)

 

[kcharley]

I started cycling without fish when i brought the tank on friday, having taken this sample down to the shop, i was told i could introduce fish (some barbs?)

Were you able to add filter media from a cycled filter when you set up on Friday? If not, it is very doubtful you have a cycled filter.

You can always add a fish. The real problem is you probably don't have a cycled filter so adding fish means you are doing a fish-in cycle. In this case, you are now looking at almost daily water changes.

At this point, I recommend you get yourself a good liquid test kit. A lot here use the API Master Freshwater test kit. Nutrafin is said to make a good one also. Stay away from the paper tests. They are notoriously inaccurate and difficult to read.

I'm assuming you added fish to your aquarium. (If I'm wrong then you can stick with the fishless cycle you started.) Test your water daily for ammonia and nitrite. I wouldn't worry about ph or nitrates at this point. Anytime the ammonia or nitrite gets to .25 you should do a water change to get the levels under .25. The higher over .25 the larger the water change. Be sure to add a conditioner to the water to treat any chlorine. If you use Seachem Prime, it should convert any ammonia to ammonium (a good thing). Basically you need time for the bacteria colonies to grow in the filter. The bacteria colonies will convert ammonia (and ammonium) into nitrite and then convert the nitrite into nitrate. This will take 4 to 6 weeks to happen. A fully cycled filter will convert the ammonia and nitrite into nitrate in 12 hours or less. I wouldn't add anymore fish until your filter is cycled. Once cycled add fish gradually as the bacteria colonies will need to grow to handle the increased ammonia and nitrite levels.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

ok the fish shop's not really giving you the full story here I'm afraid, and worse it's all too common. good news is you've found this site before you go out to buy fish! by doing that you've probably just saved the lives of your first fish.

did the shop actually say -5 nitrate? cos it starts at 0, no such thing as minus nitrate!

basically when you first set up a fish tank you have a choice of how to cycle your filter, with fish or without fish. I would recommend that you do it without fish, what the fish shop are telling you to do is a cycle with fish except they've not armed you with the facts about your options.

basically when you buy a fish tank the filter is just a bit of hardware, it's like a computer with no programmes on it, not even windows. if you just try and switch it on now and go ahead with fishkeeping your pretty much heading for disaster, you need to prepare the filter before it can process waste from the fish.

fish produce ammonia, ammonia is toxic to fish, whne we say a filter has been cycled what we mean is that two species of bacteria that live in the filter have grown to an acceptable level to process this ammonia so the water doesn't get toxic when fish are added. we call this a cycle because thescientific process happening is hte nitrogen cycle. you have your first species of bacteria, we'll call them ABacs, they consume all the ammonia and convert it to nitrite. nitrite is still toxic to fish though so that's only half hte process. we then have the other species of bacteria that we'll call NBacs and these consume all the nitrite and convert it to nitrate. Nitrate is also toxic but only in very high doses so we get rid of this by changing some of the water once a week. understanding this basic process is really the key to sucessfull fishkeeping.

so wit a new tank you cna go one of two ways, if you cycle with fish then you add a small amount of fish now, they will start producing ammonia but it'll be a few weeks before you have any bacteria to deal with it so if you just leave the tank be then they'll get poisoned nad most likely becme ill or die. So to prevent this you need to do water changes to dilute it until the bacteria grow, this will be daily water changes of around 30-50% of the whole tanks volume. That's hard work, and even then there's no guarantee' your fish will make it, the water will still be toxic and could kill them. Then even if they make it through the cycle there's a chance that they will sustain permaent respiratory damage which will shorten their life nad reduce it's quality.

or the other option is a fishless cycle, this is where you buy some pure ammonia (available at chemits for about £2 normally) and add this to the tank, it simulates fish producing waste so the bacteria start to grow. you meaure the water daily and by this process you know when it's safe to add fish without the water becoming toxic and with no danger to them.

both processes will take around 4-6 weeks, you've a choice of lots of daily water tests and water changes and the risk of killing your new pets or of daily water tests and topping up a bit of ammonia but looking at a bare tank for a few weeks until it's ready.

It's your choice but the pet shop should at least have made you aware of the options.

I strongly recommend you do a fishless cycle as this is safest for the fish, there's a topic linked in my signature which explains how this all works.

 

[dumla]

did the shop actually say -5 nitrate? cos it starts at 0, no such thing as minus nitrate!

The shop done the test for me and wrote the results on the sheet that i put in the original post. It looks like i'm now doing a fish in cycle as the kind lady in the shop told my 3 year old son that he can now pick out some fish for his tank! We've put in 5 barbs for now, luckily for me i can get down the shop everyday so i can get the water tested. Thanks for all the advice.

 

[rdd1952]

I agree that the test results are not accurate. As mentioned, there is no such thing as negative nitrate. That's like saying there is a negative amount coins in my pocket. It's quite possible I don't have any in there but there is no way I have less than zero. Also, unless your tap water has nitrite in it (which is possible), the nitrite reading should be zero. The problem with the way books and the shops tell you to "cycle" the tank is that you basically run tap water in the tank, add dechlorinator, let the filter run a few days and then test the water. Naturally, it comes back with no ammonia or nitrite because.....it's tap water. There hasn't been an ammonia source for any bacteria present to process. And until there is an ammonia source, those bacteria will not begin to multiply and build the colony of nitrifying bacteria needed to process the ammonia and nitrite from fish waste.

Since you now have fish (what type barbs and what size tank), the best thing you can do now is read this thread on cycling with fish and start testing the water daily (buy your own master liquid test kit that test ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH). Do water changes as needed to keep ammonia and nitrite below .25 ppm until the tank completely cycles (ammonia and nitrte are both at 0 for a full week). At that point you can add a few more fish (no more than you already have and provided the tank is large enough and you aren't already fully stocked) and start the testing/water change process again since the bacteria will now have to start multiplying again to catch up to the new bio-load (shouldn't take as long this time as bacteria can usually double their numbers in about a day).

 

[dumla]

Since you now have fish (what type barbs and what size tank)

we have 5 golden barbs in a 125l tank, i will buy a testing kit when i get the water tested next