Absolute Newbie With Gh And No3 Up The Clouds.

[Mocky]

Hey, sorry if there are posts that have already spoken about this topic or if im making this thread in the wrong place, i been less than a week into the whole caretaking of fish, and kinda just been reading posts and posts over and over that to try to understand what to do to not get my fish killed
 
so,  I was recently gifted a fish tank of 2 gallons with 2 3year old convict cichlids in it, it already had water in it, i started toying with it, and found a "test strip" with the kit i was given, it showed Nitrite levels of almost 0, Ph on 7 or "nice", KH low too, but then, Nitrate at 200, or, lets say it had to be dark pink for 200, and it was reddish, also, the GH was at 180, every time some water fell off the tank, it turned into white crust, i understand now that this is because calcium deposits in it
 
so I need to find a way to lower both the GH and NO3 by ALOT before these 2 fish die, from reading several articles, i know that they wont die inmedietly from any of these things but, the panic still remains, i understood i need to do constant water changes from 10% 25% or 50% if i want to be extreme when it comes to lowering the Nitrates levels, but also read that this is really bad thing to do, if my GH levels are high, or that i should add plants, that lower the Nitrates, but also read that plants are killed by really high GH levels, or to ADD SUGAR, but sugar its supposed to add up to the GH making it higher, so i should fix my GH levels first, but the only ways i read about to lower the GH is taking my fish out of the fishtank, and cleaning it with industrial products
 
so please, i need advise, how should i proceed? should i try fixing the GH or the Nitrates first? or are there methods i dont know about? I really dont want these fish to die when they were just gifted to me
 
I recently made a 40% water change, but the nitrate levels are still on near 200, my water sources have 0 Nitrates and Nitrites on them, and i might have added less than a table spoon of salt some days ago, because read it was good for tropical fish ;__;
 
 
help please, thanks, and sorry for the bad grammar.

 

[WILDER]

Just need to clear something up before we go any further. Is the tank a 2 gallon, or 20 gallon tank?

 

[Mocky]

2 gallon, its too small for the 2 convicts, or should my priority just be leave them on standby and get a bigger tank ASAP?

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

The really important thing is that you need to make sure that ammonia and nitrIte are both 0. Have you cleaned the filter at all? If you did, did you clean it in old tank water? Cleaning it in tap water will damage the bacteria that keep your tank clean. 
 
Yes your nitrate is too high but ammonia and nitrite are the two really dangerous ones that you need to have at 0. To fix the nitrate problem just keep doing very large water changes and you will get it down eventually. You can even do  100% water change if you want. Just move the fish to another container and make sure that only dechlorinated water touches your filter. 
 
Regarding the size of the tank, yes you need a bigger tank ASAP. You need one of about 30 gallons for these fish in a long instead of tall tank. If you can get a bigger tank for them just move the filter media from the filter in the small tank into whatever filter you get for the bigger tank, again making sure that no dechlorinated water touches the filter. 
 
BTW your English is great, I wish I could speak another language as well as you!!

 

[Mocky]

Ok, im still trying to get a better tank, I started doing large water changes every 3 days and the Nitrate problem is going down and the fish seem to be reacting nicely to it, i don't know, but that still leaves the GH problem? or having a very large General Hardness is not that much of a problem? the Nitrite levels are very very low, and i still don't know how to measure ammonia, but if nitrite is low and nitrate is high, wouldn't that mean that there is no ammonia?
 
Like, what I understand is that Ammonia turns into Nitrite and Nitrite into Nitrate, so if Nitrite is low and Nitrate high, that means that all the ammonia turned into Nitrite and the Nitrate into Nitrate? hahahaha
 
No, i cleaned the filter with tap water, had no idea i had to use the old tank water, i been washing it with pressure tap water to clean it completly

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

While it is a good sign that nitrite is being produced, it doesn't mean that you have no ammonia. Don't worry about the hardness it is what it is and your fish will adapt to that. You need to get a test kit that will allow you to test for ammonia. Liquid test kits are best and the API brand is a good option.
 
You're correct in the way the nitrogen cycle works but, nope it doesn't mean all of your ammonia is gone as it's a small tank and the fish are constantly producing it. Each time you washed your filter in tap water you've killed the bacteria that you are trying to grow, starting the cycle over again.
 
When you say nitrite is very low, what is it?

 

[TwoTankAmin]

First off your water is not super hard:

General Hardness

0 - 4 dH, 0 - 70 ppm : very soft
4 - 8 dH, 70 - 140 ppm : soft
8 - 12 dH, 140 - 210 ppm : medium hard
12 - 18 dH, 210 - 320 ppm : fairly hard
18 - 30 dH, 320 - 530 ppm : hard
higher : liquid rock (Lake Malawi and Los Angeles, CA)
Next:

 
You're correct in the way the nitrogen cycle works but, nope it doesn't mean all of your ammonia is gone as it's a small tank and the fish are constantly producing it. Each time you washed your filter in tap water you've killed the bacteria that you are trying to grow, starting the cycle over again.

 
No you did not kill all your bacteria by rinsing under the tap. You did not kill most or even a lot of it. You may have killed some of it. Much greater harm is done with pressure. the bacteria live in a bio-film which protects if from typical tap levels of chlorine and chloramine. This doesn't make a good or safe idea to clean in tap water that has chlorine. it just means its not usually disastrous.
 
However, the one thing that will really damage the bacteria is pressure washing bio-media. It will blow the bio-film off the surfaces to which it is attached. Too strong a current exerts shear force which dislodges bits of or entire areas of bio-film.
 
Finally, the first thing you need to do here is to determine your tap water parameters. Test your tap for the following:
 
1.GH
2.KH
3. ammonia and nitrate
4. pH- do tis by filling a glass with water and letting it sit for at least 12 hours or more then test. Alternatively if you have an air pump you can bubble the water for an hour and then test. This is important because water from the tap is often over or under saturated with co2 and this will cause a pH reading that is not accurate. The process here is designed to allow gasses in the water to reach their natural equilibrium level.
 
The reason for the above it allows one to know how much he parameters in a tank are being affected by things in the tank.
 
And yes, you do need a bigger tank