Tests Kits

[leggoman]

hi all
ok first post and looking for some help with my tank? tropical

300l with 110l sump with about 75/80l of water in the sump
so i have 375/380 water in all
two power heads with under gravel filter
co2 unit
5 watt UV
2 x 300watt heaters
2 x t8 lights 48"
1 x blue moon light 36"
sump pump 2600lph
2 x RO Unit 100+50gal aday

my tank has been set up over 8mths
fishless setup
added plants
6 fish added after a month then 6 to 10 a time tell now

now with many of the troubles you get in a new tank, i hoped i had over come them but may be not.
i use ro water i add tropic marin i.e. re-mineral with a tds of 25 which has gone up 9 points from new setup
i have a lot of bog wood with plants
OK thats my setup

I test my water ever water change and also twice in the week, water change every 7 to 9 days tops 75l changed

i use APT test kit for PH NO2 NO3 TETRA for ammonia

my trouble started a few weeks ago iv been adding Easy Life profito and Voogle fish life saver

Iv stared to loose a few fish i.e. one or two over a few days lost ten and to day my small cat fish don't look to good.

I took my water to be tested at three shops i use to get fish from and tests where all ok

I then took a sample to another shop who tested my water with a JBL KIT and got a highish NO3 reading on a jbl chart the reading was between 10/20
was told to do a water change right away witch i did 50l next day another 25l
Next day Another dead fish
so going to the shop i use most and a very long chat he tested my water for copper nil then phosphates wow off the chart
So i know this post has been long but can any one tell me
what iv added to my tank to give me such high phosphate readings is it the voogle life saver or the proFito or can anyone see any other reason for such high readings that iv not looked into?
My tank

/Users/leggoman/Desktop/IMG_0333.JPG

 

[TomShootsPhoto]

Hi!!

I guess you should just stop adding the chemicals you added recently. ( Easy Life profito and Voogle fish life saver)
Also, only add the amount as shown on the box. These chemicals usually get added after water change.

What are your water perimeters now?

 

[leggoman]

iv stopped adding any thing now

ammonia 0
PH 7
NO2 0
N03 20
phosphates new test ill get tomorrow
the phosphates test dune today reading has come down 50% of what it was after 75l water change yesterday
so ill do another water change today and hope that will bring every thing back to normal
but I'm still having trouble with n03 test kits i.e. readings witch is not helping
i tested n03 today
jbl test kit n03 20
tetra n03 10
apt n03 0
apt kit is what iv been using for about three months
then i got tetra lfs used jbl and told me my no3 was high
my two kits have been saying my no3 was between 10 and 20
dont understand three tests on no3 and reading so far out
and lost two more fish today
don't know what to do next

 

[Fish are friends]

having nitrate in the tank is not a problem you can have levels upto 80ppm with no affect on the fish. generally that's when you do a water change. from the rest of your readings your stats are good... what temp is your tank and what fish do you have in your tank??

 

[the_lock_man]

What is the phosphate reading, as you've not actually posted a level. You may well have phosphates in your tapwater.

The nitrate tests don't show a problem to me, 20ppm is not even slightly approaching high, that's a very nice figure. I get 30-40ppm nitrate in my tapwater. It's certainly not what's causing your fish to die.

The difference in readings is that the test aren't hugely accurate (they don't really need to be). In particular, the API nitrate test is getting a very bad reputation for showing false zero levels - you really need to shake bottle 2 for ages, bang it on the work surface. There is a powder reagent in there which can precipitate out of solution, and if you don't get dissolved again, the test won't give you an accurate reading.

As to what is causing your fish to die

I know you said you cycled fishlessly for a month, but did you add bottled ammonia to the tank during this time?

 

[Prime Ordeal]

You haven't described how the fish died, i.e. what their behaviour was prior to dying. I see you're injecting CO2 but you've given no CO2 readings. I'm thinking it may possibly be CO2 poisoning (pending your description of how they died).

And the ProFito contains no phosphate so it isn't coming from there. It would also be somewhat ironic if the 'Voogle fish life saver' was actually killing them! Does the bottle or box tell you what's in the Voogle?

 

[leggoman]

thank you so much for your replays.
as for my tank temp it is at 26.5
the first phosphate reading was off the chart second reading was half first sorry did not look at numbers second time
but I'm taken water to be tested today
well to be honest how did the fish look before i found the dead? they seemed to be fine as do all the fish
my tanks been set up over 8 months, i don't use tape water as its been so bad i use RO water and i re-mineralize it

iv just done a 75l water change and added poly filter last night

Im just doing a water test tank been running an hour so just going to see what reading are then go get phosphate level tested.

PH - 7 tetra
ammonia - 0 tetra
NO2- 0 apt
N03 - 20 apt 20 jbl tetra 10
CO2 - 6.8 aquaGro
phosphate - between 1 and 2.5
oxygen between 5 and 8

don't know what else to test
any words of help would be great

as for the apt no3 test thank you
"you really need to shake bottle 2 for ages, bang it on the work surface."
I was not shaking it hard or long enough it seems.

"The difference in readings is that the test aren't hugely accurate (they don't really need to be)"
Any reason for that "aren't hugely accurate don't really need to be"
sorry if its silly asking but I would of hoped for what i pay for test kits they would be almost right.

Any way thanks for reading any any help given
Im very greatful
thanks

 

[the_lock_man]

Yeah, you've got 2 tests saying 20ppm, and another saying 10ppm - reality will probably be somewhere in the middle. As hobbyists, we don't need to know the exact levels, down to the last 0.01ppm, and that's especially so with nitrate, it's the least important of NH3, NO2 and NO3. I'm not saying that a test which says 10ppm when it's actually 50ppm is accurate enough. But one that says 10ppm when it's actually 15ppm is accurate enough.

Did you add bottled ammonia during your fishless cycle?

 

[Prime Ordeal]

When you do a water change are you matching the TDS of the new water to the TDS of the tank water (i.e. making them the same?). Did the deaths occur just after a water change?

 

[leggoman]

When you do a water change are you matching the TDS of the new water to the TDS of the tank water (i.e. making them the same?). Did the deaths occur just after a water change?

hi
deaths occurred over two weeks. and when i first found dead fish the first thing i did was test water
readings ok took water to lfs water tested ok two days later another dead fish
fish all seemed ok
another day another dead fish tested water still ok did a 75l water change
few days another dead fish
75l water change
a few days and two more dead fish.

"matching the TDS of the new water to the TDS of the tank water"
not sure where your going here but tds is as
tds tap water is 277 this is low at the momment we have had pipes flushed clean 8 weeks ago it was 470
tds in tank 177
ro unit tda is 16
tds of ro water with ro re-mineral iv not taken as i mix amount needed in bucket and add to tank
but I'm sure that the tds of mixed ro water added will be lower than that in the tank.
may be i am missing some thing here?
tds in tank will change from day to day added food waste (i think as iv never tested"
don't know if this helps any but look forward to here what you think of readings?
thanks again

 

[leggoman]

Yeah, you've got 2 tests saying 20ppm, and another saying 10ppm - reality will probably be somewhere in the middle. As hobbyists, we don't need to know the exact levels, down to the last 0.01ppm, and that's especially so with nitrate, it's the least important of NH3, NO2 and NO3. I'm not saying that a test which says 10ppm when it's actually 50ppm is accurate enough. But one that says 10ppm when it's actually 15ppm is accurate enough.

Did you add bottled ammonia during your fishless cycle?

yes i added ammonia during fish-less cycle tank cycled ok
added a few fish 5 or six left them to it for a few weeks
then built my sump added that to tank and was going all ok tell two three weeks ago
in that three week iv not done any thing apart from add 6 new fish platys that a few days later gave me 15 babies and my bristle-nose had a long time also had babies

 

[Prime Ordeal]

"matching the TDS of the new water to the TDS of the tank water"
not sure where your going here but tds is as
tds tap water is 277 this is low at the momment we have had pipes flushed clean 8 weeks ago it was 470
tds in tank 177
ro unit tda is 16
tds of ro water with ro re-mineral iv not taken as i mix amount needed in bucket and add to tank
but I'm sure that the tds of mixed ro water added will be lower than that in the tank.
may be i am missing some thing here?
tds in tank will change from day to day added food waste (i think as iv never tested"
don't know if this helps any but look forward to here what you think of readings?
thanks again

I think you are missing something. Large TDS changes can be (and usually are) an instant fish killer. TDS affects the osmotic pressure that the fish experiences and they cannot adapt to rapid changes. The fact that you don't appear to be being consistent (correct me if I'm wrong) with your remineralisation, means that every time you make a water change you shock their osmoregulatory system and, as a consequence, you get instant or delayed deaths depending upon the degree of TDS difference between the new water and the tank water.

You should be matching the TDS of the new water to the tank water or, if not, making water changes very gradually over several hours (preferably over the course of a day if the TDS difference is large as I suspect yours is).

In all other respects your tank water will, as you have found, give perfect readings.

 

[leggoman]

I take on board the points you have made, i am consistent with my tank up keep.
ill be honest and say you point on matching tds of new water to old water is a little
outside my understanding
why i say that is
if i take 75l out of my tank and put the same amount back in then i add 5 spoons of re-mineral to that water
as per the instructions on the box

as far as i know the tds of water in my tank would/will change day by day (or so i was led to believe?)
Im going to start taking reading to see if that is the case just to prove to myself.

I am not sure how i can match new RO water to old tank water.
if you are taking about the PH then it is the same.
but Im alway open to new ways and to learn
I look ford ward to your views and help on how or what you t hunk i am doing wrong

thanks again for your time and help

I take on board the points you have made, i am consistent with my tank up keep.
ill be honest and say you point on matching tds of new water to old water is a little
outside my understanding
why i say that is
if i take 75l out of my tank and put the same amount back in then i add 5 spoons of re-mineral to that water
as per the instructions on the box

as far as i know the tds of water in my tank would/will change day by day (or so i was led to believe?)
Im going to start taking reading to see if that is the case just to prove to myself.

I am not sure how i can match new RO water to old tank water.
if you are taking about the PH then it is the same.
but Im alway open to new ways and to learn
I look ford ward to your views and help on how or what you think i am doing wrong

thanks again for your time and help

I take on board the points you have made, i am consistent with my tank up keep.
ill be honest and say you point on matching tds of new water to old water is a little
outside my understanding
why i say that is
if i take 75l out of my tank and put the same amount back in then i add 5 spoons of re-mineral to that water
as per the instructions on the box

as far as i know the tds of water in my tank would/will change day by day (or so i was led to believe?)
Im going to start taking reading to see if that is the case just to prove to myself.

I am not sure how i can match new RO water to old tank water.
if you are taking about the PH then it is the same.
but Im alway open to new ways and to learn
I look ford ward to your views and help on how or what you think i am doing wrong

thanks again for your time and help

 

[Prime Ordeal]

as far as i know the tds of water in my tank would/will change day by day (or so i was led to believe?)

Precisely. So you can't expect the TDS of the new remineralised RO water you use when making a water change to be the same as the tank water. Thus, depending upon the difference between the two, you may be unwittingly driving them into osmotic shock.

What you need to do is measure the TDS of the tank water just before a water change and also measure the TDS of the water you're going to put into the tank, i.e. your remineralised RO water. If the difference is large then that's probably the casue oif your deaths.

 

[leggoman]

as far as i know the tds of water in my tank would/will change day by day (or so i was led to believe?)

Precisely. So you can't expect the TDS of the new remineralised RO water you use when making a water change to be the same as the tank water. Thus, depending upon the difference between the two, you may be unwittingly driving them into osmotic shock.

What you need to do is measure the TDS of the tank water just before a water change and also measure the TDS of the water you're going to put into the tank, i.e. your remineralised RO water. If the difference is large then that's probably the casue oif your deaths.

if i was putting in Pure RO water 75l I can understand what your saying and to a point agree it could be the reason iv lost fish.
75l out of 380l tank being remineralised should not kill my fish
ill take reading as you have said and see what the readings are.

its bringing another side to keeping fish and some thing more to learn about