Water Test Question

nycon

Hello Everyone,

I'm new to the forum, and to keeping fish as well.

I've had my tank setup for almost 4 months now. about 3 months in I had a falling out and almost all my fish died, except my original red tail shark and a zebra danio. I left those two fish for a few weeks on their own and had no problems so I slowly repopulated my tank to include 4 Tiger Barbs, 4 neons, and 1 cory cat.

10 GAL tank, so not the biggest in the world.

All seems to be going just fine, its been about two weeks now and no deaths.

I did a water test today to see where I stand, but I'm not quite sure if the readings are good or bad, I was hoping someone could help me decipher them.

Here are the readings. . .

Ammonia - 0
GH - 0
KH - 240
PH - 8.5
NO2 - 0 - 0.5
NO3 - 20 - 40

Thanks!

Eric

UnknownUser

It seems like your ph is wayyy to high. I just tested mine it is a new tank about 3 weeks old and my ph was at 8 which can apparently be deadly to the freshwater fish... I just put in some tabs to drop the ph but I read that for freshwater we want the water to be between 6.4 and 7.2... Mine was at 8.0. I am going to go to Petsmart after work today and get some PH Down and try to slowly drop it down. I have lost 3 fish so far a silver shark which looks like a cat fish and 2 blue tetras which were quite lovely.

Judge

Welcome Nycon and glad you're here. Do I understand that you have 11 fish in a 10 gallon tank? Wow, that seems a lot of a bio-load for that tank. We would love some pic's of your tank and watery friends.

nycon

Hi Judge,

You are correct 11 fish, the local fish store mentioned that would be the max number for my tank, so I slowly added fish to that number and that will be it.

I'll snap some pics and post them later today.

Tommy Gun

Hey nycon - welcome to the forum! You as well Unknown User!

As you progress through this hobby I feel that you will begin to realize that all fish are not created equally and hence, there is no real way to say something along the lines of "you can keep 11 fish in a 10 gallon tank" or any other tank for that matter. The best idea IMO and IME, is to look at each fish individually (e.g. their habits, lifestyle, potential size and not current size) and rely on your test results to show you when/if your stocking is ideal as it relates to bio load.

With that in mind, I regretfully have to disagree with Unknown User in that our FW fish can live and thrive in a much larger range of pH than 6.4 to 7.2. In fact, many fish, when in their natural habitats, not only live in waters with a pH of 8.0, but can also thrive if that pH level changes. However, unlike natural habitats, it is extremely easy for us to change the pH of an aquarium (a relatively tiny body of water) and change it so rapidly that we can stress and/or shock our fish to the point where they are more prone to illness/disease, or even death. For this reason, I feel as though the best idea is to determine what pH naturally occurs in your aquarium given the different variables such as the substrate you are using, any decorations you have, any wood you have, etc, etc, etc and from there, continue testing to ensure that it remains at a constant/steady level. If for some reason you find that it is changing, then I 100% sure that the members of this forum would be more than willing and able to help you out if you were to ask.

It is also important to know that adding new fish is going to change things a little bit and there may be some lag between when you add the fish and when you notice change. So, IMHO it is always a good idea to continue testing regularly even if all seems well. It does look as though your tank may be cycling still because of the nitrIte level (which would normally be 0) but that may be a result of the new additions...what many of us might refer to as a ''mini-cycle" or lag between the newly increased amount of ammonia production and your biological filter growing to accommodate the higher amount of food. Getting back to my comments on letting your test kits help you determine stocking, in general you would probably want to monitor nitrAte levels over the next few weeks to determine how much it increases between your water changes. If the nitrAte level rises extremely fast, you may need to increase the frequency/amount of water you change and/or reduce the number of fish. However, there are also other things to consider as well. For example, if you notice that your fish are fighting a lot (e.g. show a lot of injuries), you may have to reduce the number of fish or my personal favorite of all options, buy a bigger aquarium!

Anyways, it is very nice to meet both of you and I am sure that you will find FTF to be a fantastic resource of information for all of your aquatic endeavors!

TG

nycon

Hi Tommy Gun,

Thanks for the awesome reply! I can see this fourm being a huge help in the future!

So I guess for now my best course of action is to continue to do weekly water changes and minitor the PH level and see if it begins to decrease?

Jay

Hi nycon...Welcome to our forum

I must admit I only skimmed Tommy's excellent reply, but you need to consider that you cannot have a KH of 200+ and 0 GH since both readings are expressed in terms of calcium carbonate. <-(I know I know, really confusing stuff). You might want to revisit your testing procedures, expiration dates etc..

Let me give you an incentive...a reading of 0 GH will eventually kill your fish .

Regards,
Jay

nycon

thats not good at all. . . I'm using a test kit from the local pet store from API 5 in 1 Aquarium test strips. I'll try again in a bit and post my findings.

Ok new test results are in. . .

gh 60
kh 240
ph 7.5 - 8.0 (not the easiest to read, colours are all very close to each other)
no2 1
no3 80


ammonia (seperate test strip) 0 - very easy colours to read

nycon

Ok here are new results from todays test. . .

gh 60
kh 240
ph 9.0
no2 5
no3 80

ammonia (seperate test strip) 0

Any insight of whats going on. . . good readings or bad??

thanks!!

Jay

Your getting some really wild fluctuations in your readings.

Some of them are really wacky. Test strips are the least accurate of testing kits.

I would take a water sample to the LFS and have them test your water. Ask them to give you the actual readings.

If your NO3 is really 80,, you need to do some back to back water changes to get it down to the 10-20 range.

I would suggest a better test kit...but let us hear back on the LFS results.

Jay