Levels

[caz_m]

Can someone tell me what (roughly) the levels of chemicals should be in the water

PH
Nitrite
Nitrate
Ammonia

So I can check them against my daily readings.

Thanks

 

[idlefingers]

PH depends on what fish you keep but safe levels are generally between 6-8
Nitrite should always be 0
Ammonia should always be 0
Nitrate again depends on your fish but under 100 (I think) is considered safe.. 40 being a good figure and anything below that being optimal (0 is great)

 

[caz_m]

Thanks very much.

We stupidly cycled with fish , and are trying to keep the ammonia down.

We have a 15 gallon tank with

4 Rummy Nose Tetras
3 black mollys
2 albino catfish
3 Guppys

The levels at the mo are

PH 7
Nitrite 1
Nitrate 3
Ammonia 2 (desperately trying to get it down, currenly using Ammo Lock)

We are using it every 2 days, so I hope it works.

The fish seem very happy, the water is clear and at 25 degrees. Am not feeding for a couple of days to see if that makes a diffence.

We did a 20% water change yesterday. How often should we do it?

 

[idlefingers]

I'd keep the feeding to a minimum like you are to try to minimize the ammonia created by the fish for the time being. I'd continue doing 20% water changes daily until the ammonia and nitrite readings lower considerably.

 

[caz_m]

Brilliant, thanks for the advice.

Is it ok to use cooled boiled water? As we thought this water maybe better for the fish, than plain tap water?

 

[Rillan]

You can get treatments for that. Ive never done that personally.

 

[caz_m]

We have dechlorinizer, just thought that they say distilled is better,and isnt boiled distilled?

 

[Genie]

someone suggested on another topic to use one kettle of boiled water added to every bucket of plain tap water. With the dechlorinizer plain tap water is usually fine, and i think they used the kettle just to bring the temp up just a little, less shock for the fishies

 

[caz_m]

Brilliant, thanks. Yes we always measure the temp of the buckets before we add that water to the tank

 

[Rooster]

We have dechlorinizer, just thought that they say distilled is better,and isnt boiled distilled?

Distilled is no good to us... and no, boiling actually makes things a little WORSE - you are concentrating the chemicals in the water by evaporating away some of the water !

Plain old COLD tap water... hot water from the tap is a bad idea, but I run the cold for a minute - to flush the "stood" water out of the pipes, then fill a kettle... half a kettle to a 3 gall bucket, topped off with cold does it for at this time of year... along with a splash of aquasafe in the bottom !
I use a length of hose to fill the bucket on the floor - the drop in height makes for a good mix - with a decent head on it !
Letting this stand for a while, I empty out the old tank water with another bucket... about 25% a week, which is 2 buckets for me.
I now mix another batch in the now empty 2nd bucket, add the first to the tank. Do any other work needed (such as scooping out duckweed ) then top off with the 2nd.
Sounds a LOT more complicated than it is, I have 3 tanks... takes about 30 mins the lot.

 

[idlefingers]

I don't think using boiled water would make much difference in terms of purity. If you want pure water, use RO. But as a way to combat new tank syndrome, so long as it's clean, fresh water which has been de-chlorinated, there's no going wrong!

Plain old COLD tap water... hot water from the tap is a bad idea

It depends on how your water heater works as to how true this is. If you have a hot water tub (or whatever it's called) where the water sits in a metal drum as it's heated, then it's not safe. But if you have a combi boiler where the cold water is heated on-the-fly then hot water is no different to cold.