Confused Newbie.

[Phil Marsh]

The ph in the bottle water is 6.2

Tap water is 7.6 although before I got my kit pets at home tested it and it came back 8.8. How strange.

Anyway here are the parameters for my tap water after treatment.
Ph 7.6
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 20-40ppm

Is this habitable for neons??

 

[The Taffy Apple]

The perfectionist in every entusiast would say they may prefer slightly higher or slightly lower.. if you do a little reseacrh into them you will find a common level that these fish have been succesfully kept at.

Terry.

 

[balajake]

my ph is 7.8 out of my tap and its never bothered my fish.

 

[Essjay]

I have got an aqua-detox in the filter (nitra zorb) which is supposed to absorb all the bad bits

According to API's website, nitrazorb is supposed to absorb ammonia and nitrite as well as nitrate. If that is the case, your ammonia is going down because the nirtazorb is absorbing it, not because you have any bacteria to remove it. Well maybe some bacteria, but you won't know for certain because of the nitrazorb. I would take the nitrazorb out and see what happens. If you leave the nitrazorb in, you will have to change it before it gets full or once the nitrazorb is saturated it'll stop absorbing ammonia and the level in the tank will go up as you won't have enough bacteria to cope with it all.

As for your pH, if you are using the API tester, are you using the standard one or the high range one? The standard one only goes up as high as 7.6, if your pH is higher than that the tester can't go that high so everything above 7.6 shows as 7.6. You need to test with the high range tester. If that gives a result over 7.6, that is the accurate one.

 

[Phil Marsh]

I have the api master kit. I did both a high and low range ph test both came back similar between 7.6 on the low and 7.4 on the high.

As for the nitra zorb it's been removed Since lunch time now and ammonia has remained at 0 and nitrite is just a fraction off the 0.