Here are my Water test Results over 9 days. Anything I should I do?

FishForums.net Pet of the Month
🐶 POTM Poll is Open! 🦎 Click here to Vote! 🐰

Box of Demons

New Member
Joined
Mar 13, 2020
Messages
46
Reaction score
8
Location
Leeds
Fluval Roma 240. I have added ammonia and bacteria. I have NO livestock just plants with c02 do my reading seem normal.

I have not done any water changes as yet,

Day 4
PH = 6
Ammonia = 8
Nitrite = 1
Nitrate = 0

Day 6
PH = 6
Ammonia = 8
Nitrite = 1
Nitrate = 0

Day 9
PH = 6.6
Ammonia = 8
Nitrite = 0.25
Nitrate = 5

It seems on day 9 my PH has increased, Nitirte has fallen slightly and Nitrate has increased, is everything ok? should I do some water changes?

Any help or advice very appreciated.
 
Yes, there is definitely something wrong if your Ammonia is reading 8ppm! It should be 0ppm.

Your nitrate is looking ok. In freshwater aquariums it should be anywhere from 5ppm-10ppm, so you are in the clear.

Your ph should be higher than that. What fish are you planning on getting?
 
Are you still adding ammonia? If your nitrite is going up (and back down) and your nitrate is going up your ammonia should be going down. If its still at 8ppm do a 50% water change to drop it to 4ppm.
Then I'm afraid its a waiting game :)
 
Ideally you should drop the ammonia level to 3 ppm. Your ammonia reading of 8 ppm is right at the top of the scale of most testers so it could actually be well over 8 ppm. The reason your ammonia level doesn't appear to be dropping is because it is probably well of the top of the tester scale so even if the plants and bacteria are removing some, it is still over 8 ppm.

The problem with adding too much ammonia is that it makes so much nitrite that the cycle stalls. Each 1 ppm ammonia is turned into 2.7 ppm nitrite, so you don't need much ammonia to reach the stall point of 15 to 16 ppm nitrite.
That's why the fishless cycling method on here was written. If followed properly nitrite can never get high enough to stall the cycle.


8 ppm ammonia won't do the plants much good either. If a fishless cycle is done using ammonia, the plants should not be added until after the cycle is complete.
How many plants do you have, a lot or just a few? If it's a lot you don't need to do a fishless cycle. Plants use ammonia as fertiliser and if there are enough well growing plants they will use all the ammonia made by a sensibly stocked tank of fish. So if there are a lot of plants, do a huge water chnage to remove all the ammonia from the water, watch the plants for a couple of weeks to make sure they are actively growing, then add fish a few at a time. Monitor ammonia and nitrite daily, and do a water change if you ever see either of them above zero.
 
I have done a 50% water change and will retest the water in 4 days and update this thread thanks for your advise.
 
OK so just retested and here are my results any advice from here..

PH = 6
AMMONIA = 2
NITRITE = 0.25
NITRATE = 0

THANKS
 
For other readers, this is a fishless cycle; there are no fish in the tank!

I have just noticed your low pH. The bacteria we want to grow slow down below pH 6.5 and stop completely below 6. As 6 is the lowest most testers read, your pH could be even lower. However, you are also dosing CO2, and this dissolves to form carbonic acid which will lower the pH.
What is the pH of a sample of tap water that has stood for 24 hours? Not freshly run as water companies can add things to change the pH and these need to gas off.

If you are using CO2, I assume you have a fair number of plants? if there are more than the odd couple, I would just wait until both ammonia and nitrite drop to zero, then get the first batch of fish. Check ammonia and nitrite every day to make sure the plants are taking up all the ammonia made by the fish.
Your small reading of nitrite could well be due to the high level of ammonia you were originally adding, and the plants couldn't remove all of it so the ammonia eating bacteria were removing some and making nitrite. Since a sensibly stocked tank of fish make less than 3 ppm in 24 hours, if there are enough plants they should be able to remove all the ammonia.
 
I have not done any water changes as yet,
In my experience with cycling and i had your readings my water would have 25% removed daily and new put in with water conditioner a it helps to control the high rates but everyone as their own opinion on this.
 
In my experience with cycling and i had your readings my water would have 25% removed daily and new put in with water conditioner a it helps to control the high rates but everyone as their own opinion on this.

There are no fish in the tank, no livestock, so IMHO, those readings are fine.

If there were fish in the tank, then yes, water changes should be done to keep the toxin levels down. :)
 
i Am cycling my tank too at the moment and didn’t even think about the effect ammonia would have on plants :oops: no wonder my frogbit looks a bit sorry for itself. water change today methinks ! There are no fish / shrimp in mine either of course :)
 
i Am cycling my tank too at the moment and didn’t even think about the effect ammonia would have on plants :oops: no wonder my frogbit looks a bit sorry for itself. water change today methinks ! There are no fish / shrimp in mine either of course :)

What are your ammonia and nitrite readings? If they're not too high, I'd just leave the water change until the end of the cycle, as plants use ammonia as food.
 
Weird I just tested and there was no ammonia, nitrite was about 80 ppm the other day and now nothing as far as I can tell and nitrate was zero the other day, now about 40. Do I need to add more ammonia to keep feeding the bacteria (sorry to hijack this post! will start another if I have more questions)
 
It would be better if you start another thread, and tell us exactly what you've done so far. Without knowing what you've done, we can't really interpret your results :)
 

Most reactions

trending

Staff online

Back
Top