Just started.... any help appreciated 😁

Leemw87 · Sep 30, 2021

Hi all and thanks for having me

I recently bought a second hand 100 aqua nano 60 for £80 which I thought was a good deal as its in perfect condition. I've set it all up with the media included which had already been established in a setup. I added water conditioner and a bacterial boost treatment. Its been running for about a week now and my API master test kit is as follows

PH 7.6
HRPH 8.2
AMMONIA 0 - 0.25ppm
NITRITE 0ppm
NITRATE 80ppm

how do we think this is looking?

TIA

Essjay · Oct 1, 2021

Nice size tank to start fish keeping with

Ammonia OK-ish, it needs to be zero.
Nitrite good
Nitrate - very high!
Ignore the 'lower range' pH, since the high range tester shows a pH of 8.2 that's the one to use. The lower range one will show the highest colour regardless of how high the pH is.

Your nitrate is very high - far too high for fish, it needs to be below 20 ppm. How high is nitrate in your tap water? The UK allows up to 50 ppm in drinking water. If your tap nitrate is nice and low a huge water change will get rid of the nitrate.
And are you shaking bottle #2 and the test tube when you do the nitrate test? All that shaking is important as one reagent settles on the bottom of the bottle and the shaking is to get it back into the liquid.

Was the tank running up until you collected it, or was everything dried out? Asking as if it was still running or still wet you'll still have lots of bacteria in the tank. But if it was all totally dry, the bacteria will have died off.

Your high pH suggests you have hard water. Before getting fish, can I suggest you check on your water company's website for hardness - you need a number and the unit of measurement (there are several units they could use). Ignore any words. Fish do a lot better is we keep species which originate in water with similar hardness to our tap water.

Leemw87 · Oct 1, 2021

Essjay said:
Nice size tank to start fish keeping with

Ammonia OK-ish, it needs to be zero.
Nitrite good
Nitrate - very high!
Ignore the 'lower range' pH, since the high range tester shows a pH of 8.2 that's the one to use. The lower range one will show the highest colour regardless of how high the pH is.

Your nitrate is very high - far too high for fish, it needs to be below 20 ppm. How high is nitrate in your tap water? The UK allows up to 50 ppm in drinking water. If your tap nitrate is nice and low a huge water change will get rid of the nitrate.
And are you shaking bottle #2 and the test tube when you do the nitrate test? All that shaking is important as one reagent settles on the bottom of the bottle and the shaking is to get it back into the liquid.

Was the tank running up until you collected it, or was everything dried out? Asking as if it was still running or still wet you'll still have lots of bacteria in the tank. But if it was all totally dry, the bacteria will have died off.

Your high pH suggests you have hard water. Before getting fish, can I suggest you check on your water company's website for hardness - you need a number and the unit of measurement (there are several units they could use). Ignore any words. Fish do a lot better is we keep species which originate in water with similar hardness to our tap water.

Hi thanks for the reply

The tank wasn't running but it was half full with water with the gravel filter and media still submerged. Ill have a look for my waters nitrate numbers

Leemw87 · Oct 1, 2021

Heres the nitrate info

Essjay · Oct 1, 2021

The screenshot misses the important bit - the level in your water. The column where it says 50 mg/l is the "standard", ie maximum permitted level in drinking water and mg/l is the same as ppm. The 100 right at the edge of the screenshot is the % of their tests which were below this maximum allowed. There should be more data to the right, probably the number of tests, and the minimum, maximum and mean/average readings of those tests.

Is there a page which gives your hardness? If you can't find it, tell us the name of the water company and I'll see what I can find.

Essjay · Oct 1, 2021

Ah, you are with Yorkshire Water. I have found the page where you took the screenshot and that's just telling you what the max level is for several things, not what it is at your house. But I can't find where they give water quality reports. However, for nitrate you can test your tap water with your test kit

Hardness -
Enter your postcode in the box on this page

Yorkshire Water - Check your water hardness

Providing essential water and waste water services is only the start of what we do. Find out where we are now and where we plan to be in 25 years time. Do you have hard water? Find out more about the water hardness in your area with Yorkshire Water. Water hardness is the measure of the...

www.yorkshirewater.com

This will give your hardness as mg/l calcium

My son lives in Yorkshire Water area so I've used his postcode. I've blanked out the data that will identify him, but this is what you are looking for.

There will be words in the 'water hardnes type' box, ignore them. Look for the number in the last box and tell us what it it please.

Leemw87 · Oct 1, 2021

Essjay said:
Ah, you are with Yorkshire Water. I have found the page where you took the screenshot and that's just telling you what the max level is for several things, not what it is at your house. But I can't find where they give water quality reports. However, for nitrate you can test your tap water with your test kit

Hardness -
Enter your postcode in the box on this page

Yorkshire Water - Check your water hardness

Providing essential water and waste water services is only the start of what we do. Find out where we are now and where we plan to be in 25 years time. Do you have hard water? Find out more about the water hardness in your area with Yorkshire Water. Water hardness is the measure of the...

www.yorkshirewater.com

This will give your hardness as mg/l calcium

My son lives in Yorkshire Water area so I've used his postcode. I've blanked out the data that will identify him, but this is what you are looking for.
View attachment 144393
There will be words in the 'water hardnes type' box, ignore them. Look for the number in the last box and tell us what it it please.

Leemw87 · Oct 1, 2021

Is this it?

Essjay · Oct 1, 2021

That's it, thank you.

There are several units of measurement for hardness, fish keeping uses two of them. But the one on the water company website is not one of those two so we need to convert it.
109.3 mg/l calcium = 15 dH and 260 ppm.
Fish profiles will use one of these units, so now you have your hardness in both of them

This is hard water, so soft water fish won't do well. You need to look at fish such as livebearers (guppies, platies etc), rainbowfish (smaller species as many get too big) and other hard water fish. This thread will give some ideas

Hardwater tank candidates

There are a few of us on the forum at the moment with very hard water (250ppm or 15 degrees +) and I know a few of us are keeping lists individually so I thought it would be good to set up a 'master thread' that we can all contribute to and hopefully it will be good resource for us to refer to...

www.fishforums.net

Leemw87 · Oct 1, 2021

Essjay said:
That's it, thank you.

There are several units of measurement for hardness, fish keeping uses two of them. But the one on the water company website is not one of those two so we need to convert it.
109.3 mg/l calcium = 15 dH and 260 ppm.
Fish profiles will use one of these units, so now you have your hardness in both of them

This is hard water, so soft water fish won't do well. You need to look at fish such as livebearers (guppies, platies etc), rainbowfish (smaller species as many get too big) and other hard water fish. This thread will give some ideas

Hardwater tank candidates

There are a few of us on the forum at the moment with very hard water (250ppm or 15 degrees +) and I know a few of us are keeping lists individually so I thought it would be good to set up a 'master thread' that we can all contribute to and hopefully it will be good resource for us to refer to...

www.fishforums.net

Ace thanks so much

I was only planning on getting some platties neon tetras etc and maybe a gibbicep. So what would be next in terms of cycling should I add an ammonia source?

Essjay · Oct 1, 2021

Platies - yes
Neons - no, sorry, they are soft water fish
Gibbiceps - assuming you mean a plec, you'd need a swimming pool sized tank for it. they grow HUGE. About 50 cm/20 inches long, the fish that is.

PlanetCatfish.com - Pterygoplichthys gibbiceps (Loricariidae) Cat-eLog

Images are copyright and may not be reproduced without permission of the copyright holder.

www.planetcatfish.com

There are smaller plecs which would work, eg bristlenose. And your hardness is just within its range.

The safest thing to do next is indeed add ammonia. it's not easy to come by nowadays, and those on Amazon/eBay often don't say if there's anything else in the bottle such as perfume, detergent, surfactant. If you can find pure ammonia, dose it to 3 ppm - there's a calculator on here to work out how mnay mls to use. Or get Dr Tim's Ammonium Chloride and add it at the dose rate on the bottle. Then test for ammonia and nitrite after 24 hours. If both are zero, there were enough bacteria left when you got the tank. But if either are not zero, I would continue with a fishless cycle. Have you found the method for that on here?

Essjay · Oct 1, 2021

Forgot to mention -

The best site for fish research is Seriously Fish

Knowledge Base — Seriously Fish

www.seriouslyfish.com

Their profiles tell you the smallest tank they can be kept in; what hardness, pH and temperature they need; whether they need to be in a group, a pair or alone; what they eat; suggestions for suitable tank mates.

Leemw87 · Oct 1, 2021

Essjay said:
Forgot to mention -

The best site for fish research is Seriously Fish

Knowledge Base — Seriously Fish

www.seriouslyfish.com

Their profiles tell you the smallest tank they can be kept in; what hardness, pH and temperature they need; whether they need to be in a group, a pair or alone; what they eat; suggestions for suitable tank mates.

I found it online yeah but not on here. I will do just that

Thanks again

Obsessed with fish · Oct 1, 2021

Just 1 thing I need to say: test how much weight your table can hold before putting your tank on it, trust me, I made that mistake.

Leemw87 · Oct 2, 2021

Obsessed with fish said:
Just 1 thing I need to say: test how much weight your table can hold before putting your tank on it, trust me, I made that mistake.

Its on the stand was made for it pal

I'll put some photos up once I've got all the decs

Just started.... any help appreciated 😁

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