Newbie! Help With Water Results Please!

[cathyb]

I have just tested the tank water in my 64 litre/14 gallon tank. Its been running for three weeks, it had two platys in to start with and a week later did a 10% water change, put in two more platys together with Tetra Safestart. Its now a week on and water results are;

Ammonia - 0.8
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 25

Ph is quite high at about 8.5, but we do live in a hard water area.

I tested our tap water and that is about 0.1 ammonia to start with. I am confused that there are nitrates present and no nitrites, which is good yes? So why is there still quite a high ammonia reading?

The fish are perfectly happy too, no signs of stress or anything. I have the Interpet aquarium tests, with the tubes and the disolvable tablets, do these work OK?

am thinking of taking a sample of water into the fish shop tomorrow, but would like your guys opinions first really. They may just try and flog me a load of chemicals to shove in the tank which after reading some stuff on here am not sure is the best thing to do.

Thanks in advance!

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome to the forum CathyB.
You have no problem with the pH. A platy is very tolerant of high pH values. I am a bit put off by your ammonia level though. Ammonia should always be kept at levels that you find hard to detect. For me, with an API liquid type test, that means less than 0.25 ppm. You may have a different minimum detectable level. In your situation, I would immediately stop adding any more fish to your tank and do a very large water change, 75% or so, using whatever chemical you use for chlorine control. That will put you in a much better position to measure and control ammonia levels. Once ammonia starts to control itself, you will find that nitrites are completely out of control. Again you need to do water changes to keep nitrites at less than 0.25 ppm. When you have both ammonia and nitrites staying below 0.25 ppm or whatever your minimum detectable level happens to be, without any water changes, it may be possible to add some more fish. At that point you are guided by the present fish stock levels. If you have 3 or 4 fish of a particular size, it is probably safe to add one more of those fish. The idea is to limit the change of biologically produced ammonia to no more than 25% at a time. Once that change has been made, you monitor your tank chemistry until you are again at zero ammonia and nitrites and can once again add about a 25% change in biological load.
This approach can be very slow and frustrating but avoids the frequent problem of having too many fish added to your tank at once. Doing that rapid change often means that some of your fish will die before things settle down. Most of us prefer not to have that happen to us.

 

[Assaye]

What OldMan said was spot on. To address the nitrates - tap water often has a level of nitrates in it. Unless this is really high, there is no worry. Yours are about right for a community fish tank and you should be fine to maintain them at 20-30 ppm unless you have nitrate sensitive species in your tank.

The tap water ammonia is annoying but once the cycle if finished and you have a robust bacteria colony, you will find that your tank has no ammonia as the bacteria will process the fish ammonia and the ammonia from the tap water.

 

[OldMan47]

It is my own personal challenge that what I say with any conviction is always spot on Assaye. That does not mean that I am somehow all knowing but that I take great pride in always giving the members here the best advice that I can give. I am seldom perfect in my advice but am willing to spend whatever time is needed to get my answers right before posting them here on TFF.