Help!

[nijohnnyuk]

Hi



Hope you can help. I am testing my tank levels before I get any tropical fish to put in. I am getting a ph of 8 and dH of 8 and NO2 of <0.3 and Co2 therefore is low according to my scale.

Can you help? What do I need to do?

I also have a second problem with temperature. I have set my heater to 26C like I was told in the store. Yesterday I got an in-water thermometer which read 30C yesterday. I turned the heater off and let it cool down overnight to 25C this morning and turned the heater way down to a 24C setting.....is the heater or thermometer dodgy?

Looking forward to a response.....

 

[RipSlider]

Wow, lots of questions. I think you need to take a bit of a step back.

Let's ignore CO2 completely for a minute. The key things ar your Ammonia, ( nh3), nitrite (n02 ) and Nitrate ( no3). Unless your planning on a huge planted tank as your first foray into fish keeping you can ignore pretty much everything else. Your nitrate is startin to lower nicely, so everything is doing fine fo now. Keep up whatever process you are doing.

For the pH, 8 is pretty high, but not disasterous. You don't wan it to get much higher. You could add some bogwood or do water changes if your tapwater is lower than 8 generally. Your water is hugely hard, so you should be able to bring this pH down slightly.

If your in the UK, it may be just becuase of the heat that the tank is fluctuating. a bag of ice cubes or a coke bottle 2/3rds full of ice will sort you out just fine.

Steve

 

[boff]

Hi when you put your heater in did you leave it for 30 mins before turning it on ,to set its self to the water temp ,well thats wot i had to do with mine .

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yeah the temp is probably due to the hot weather, all my tanks have been a bit warm! Most heaters are on a thermostat so it shouldn't come on unless it needs to, so you shouldn't need to turn it off.

weather you need to lower the ph depends entirley on what fish you want to stock, what were you planning on keeping?

and yes as ripslider said it's the ammonia, nitrite and nitrate you need to worry about for now, what are your readings for those?

 

[GuppiesRGr8]

u could get some cichlids with that ph but again the temperature could be from the hot weather.

 

[nijohnnyuk]

Thanks for all your replies!

The temperature is a nightmare - it has been unusually hot this past few weeks!

I don't really know what fish I want - apart from neons.

The tank is 21L so quite small - any recommendations as I have never kept tropical fish before

Another question from my reading on water changes....i have read that you need to change 1/3 of the water every so often - is this correct and if so how often?

Thanks

 

[soggyhome]

Hi the temp thing is probably the warm weather, but could also be a dodgey thermometer, always worth having a spare to cross check against

As for water changes I would say 5 litres every week would be plenty, best way to know is to keep an eye on your water stats, the nitrate readings will tell you when the water needs a change