water testing

[laurasmithuk]

hi all, just brought a water testing kit and results are as follows:

ph level - 7.2
ammonia - 0.25
nitrite - 0
nitrate - 40

is this all ok? if not what can i do to change wrong ones? sorry am pretty new to all of this! cheers for your help

 

[Miss Dib Dabs]

Looks ok. Is this a new tank? Has it been cycled? The slight elevation in ammonia could be sorted with a w/c. But you won't wanna do that is you have yet to cycle, unless you have fish already....in which case.....hmmm well maybe it'd be easier for you to let us know some more details?
Hugs,
P.

 

[laurasmithuk]

hi sorry have a juwel rekord 90 tank. has been set up for six months now and includes 12 tetras, 4 clown loach, 4 glass catsifh, 4 corys, 3 platties and 3 mollies..... clown loach are hopefully gonna be re-homed soon.

 

[tttnjfttt]

It looks like your filter isn't strong enough to keep up with your bio load or something happened to kill some of your beneficial bacteria. Have you cleaned out your filter spounge recently? Done some very heavy gravel vacuming? Did you forget to add dechlorinator?

Is your tank 90 gal or 90 Liters?

In general, your ammonia and nitrIte should always be at zero. If not, somehting is wrong within your tank, and you should immediately start daily water changes until both values are at zero. Your nitrAte is also a little high. In general, when it gets to around 40, its time for a water change. However, some people's tap water does have high nitrates, so check to make sure that this isn't the case. Your pH is more one of those things that is good to know. For the most part, you don't want to mess around with it, just make sure it doesn't change too drastically. Its also important when aclimating new fish.

 

[inflexion]

that looks fine to me mate my honest oppinion is to go with testing when you first cycle the tank then go with your fish as you will see them slightly change in their temprement.

This worked fine in my pond and i had that for about 10 years

 

[rdd1952]

You definitely have a problem since you have a reading on ammonia on a tank that is 6 months old unless you just added more fish. I'm pretty sure that is a 90 liter tank which means you are terribly overstocked as you have over 100" of fish in a 23 gallon tank. You definitely need to start rehoming fish, especially the clown loaches but even with taking those out, you are still overstocked. You will continue to have problems with ammonia.

 

[laurasmithuk]

i said i was re-homing clown loach..........whats with all the negativity?

 

[Miss Dib Dabs]

No ones having a go hon. We just all take our fish rather seriously. Look at it this way if it helps. Imagine a juvenile elephant living in an enclosure designed for a small group of chimps.....
Getting the picture? Wouldn't do it would we?
Same for fish. If there's too many or they're meant to grow large and can't due to tank size it's really unhealthy and could end in the suffering and death of those poor creatures.
We're only trying to help you. Sorry if comes across as rather negative.
Hugs,
P.

 

[tttnjfttt]

i said i was re-homing clown loach..........whats with all the negativity?

When you asked us to look at the water test results, most of us saw an immediate red flag with the ammonia reading. You should not be getting that in an established tank, and it usually means that something is going very wrong.

Now think about this for a moment, what would happen if you went to the doctor, and he/she told you that something was definately wrong, but offered no advice on what was going on or how it could be fixed? You would be out the door and never coming back, right? That is why we are trying to help you fix what is wrong.

I'm assuming RDD went to a conversion site and looked up how big your tank is in gal, and the general rule is 1" of fish per US gal. The metric rule is 1 cm of fish for every 2 liters. (I'm from the US, so i'm gonna do this in inches).
12 tetras = 1"x12 =12"
4 glass cats = 3" x 4 = 12"
4 cories = 2" x4 = 8"
3 platies = 2" x3 = 6"
3 molies = 4" x3 =12 "
==================
total = 40"

You can sometimes get around the 1" per gal rule, but the key is, you have to have the filtration to keep up with it. Alot of people begin with overstocked tanks. Trust me, you don't even want to know about my first tank, it was probably five times the recomended stocking level. Remember, an over stocked tank can be an excuse to get a bigger tank as well

There are other possible causes to a mini-cycle. Look at my previous post and see if any in there are possibilities.

Good luck!

 

[rdd1952]

I just did a google search to find that the tank was 90 liters and simply converted that. I also figured the tetras at 2" which would give you 52" plus the 48" of 4 CLs comes to 100" currently in the tank. Even though the fish are probably small, I'm still kind of surprised the ammonia and nitrite readings aren't worse.

As for being negative, I'm sorry that you took it that was. I was simply trying to point out that you had a serious problem that needs immediate attention. It will only get worse as the fish get bigger.

 

[laurasmithuk]

ok hanks all sorry for having a go..... bad day!!!1