Omg Whats Happened?

[jamjar]

hi there

i just done a quick water test with my API 5 in 1 test strips and my readings where gh 30, kh 240, ph 7, nitrite 10, nitrate 200
i donno why this is this is the first time ive had ne nitrite or nitrate at all, i added 2 peices of bog wood the other day would this have ne thing to do with it?

what shall i do??

 

[Matty P]

Check your live stock, have any of them died. Also test your tap water.

Matty

 

[GRJ]

Those test strips are very very inaccurate. You should test using a liquid drop test kit to get an accuarte reading. GRJ

 

[BigC]

Yeah... Bin the test strips. No good to man or mouse.

 

[rdd1952]

Hello and welcome to the forum.

I bet your tank has only been set up bout a week to 10 days. You haven't seen nitrite yet asthe ammonia hasn't been processed in the first 5 to 7 days. You need to do 2 things immediately.

1) Throw the test strips in the trash and go buy a liquid master test kit.
2) Do a 50% water change and continue to do them twice a day until your ammonia (the strips don't test for ammonia and that is the most important thing you need to est for in a new tank as it is the first toxin that appears) and nitrite are back below .25ppm. Continue to do 25% daily water changes until both ammonia and nitrite are zero.

Edit: I see your Group is "Validating". You will need to find the email you should have received when you registered and click the lik in it to validate your membership. Otherwise you will only be able to post in a couple forums. If you didn't get the email, check you junk mail folder and make sure you don't have gmail.com blocked. You can also have the email resent by going here.