Ready For Fish?

[hoarp001]

Hi, my first (well, first big tank) has been running for the last two weeks with no fish. It has been running whilst I was on holiday and i came back today to find that one of the tubes (the UV plant one at the back) died during the holiday. not sure when but it seems the plants have taken abit of a knock, abit black and brown on the leaves. There is one co2 nutrafin ladder in the tank.

The tank is 180L or about 50gallons.

I tested for nitrite, ammonia, pH and nitrate just now:

Nitrite 0mg/litre
Ammonia 0.1mg/litre
PH between 8.5-9
Nitrate 50mg/litre

The nitrate level is abit worrying, but the leaflet that came with the test kit says that this is not too bad, ok for hardy fish.

The tank will house 4 red bellied pirahnas.

I have arranged to do a mature media exchange with someone on this forum, but im having trouble getting hold of him at the moment, Probably gone on holiday or something! So in the meantime, if someone could tell me if these levels are ok I would be very greatful.

Also if someone could tell me weather the light dying would affect the plants...

Thanks.

 

[mattb]

Looks fine to me but your PH is very alkaline! Any reason you can think of for this?

 

[hoarp001]

theams valley water maybe... possibly the bogwood decoration or something?

is this a bad th ing, or should i reduce it?

 

[smithrc]

Hello Mate,

There are 2 options from those results...

The tank has cycled and your ready...
Or its not done anything and the tap water is at 50mg to start with.

Now you have a few fish in there, Let us know what the readings are tomorrow.

Hopefully the nitrate will be the only one that has shifted