Hi, just wondering if someone can help me understand what is happening in my tank. I started my tank almost 3 weeks ago. It is about 20US gallon and it is octagonal. I also realise it is best to cycle without fish but ammonia is impossible to find here is Aust and I didn't realise you could use fish food or some other ammonia source at the time.
Anyway I added 6 harlequin rasbora almost 3 weeks ago. I set my tank up probably almost two weeks prior to that with a sand substrate and I added a mature anubia attached to some driftwood also. I also have a couple of corkscrew vals, 3 banana lillies (which are growing very fast), java fern, java moss and amazon sword.
Since adding my fish my ammonia levels have not gone above 0.25. I am using an API kit. However for the past around 10 days my results for ammonia have been 0. Up until last Friday I had been doing daily water changes of around 15%. Since then I have done a water change on Monday and am doing another one today.
My current water stats are as follows:
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 5
pH: around 7.4 (seems to go as high as 8 and low as 7.2)
I do not have a hardness test kit.
I realise there is no way this tank is anywhere near cycled but don't understand why I have no ammonia or nitrites but I have a nitrate reading. I tested my nitrates at the start and retested my tap water when I realised I had a nitrate reading in my tank and both times the tap water was 0ppm for nitrate. I hadn't been worrying about testing for nitrates as I had had no reading for nitrites but just decided to test it anyway about 5 days ago. My water has been maintaining 0 and nitrite ammonia without daily water changes. Just wondering what others think. The fish seem to be very healthy, their colour is lovely and they are very active currently.
Anyway I added 6 harlequin rasbora almost 3 weeks ago. I set my tank up probably almost two weeks prior to that with a sand substrate and I added a mature anubia attached to some driftwood also. I also have a couple of corkscrew vals, 3 banana lillies (which are growing very fast), java fern, java moss and amazon sword.
Since adding my fish my ammonia levels have not gone above 0.25. I am using an API kit. However for the past around 10 days my results for ammonia have been 0. Up until last Friday I had been doing daily water changes of around 15%. Since then I have done a water change on Monday and am doing another one today.
My current water stats are as follows:
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 5
pH: around 7.4 (seems to go as high as 8 and low as 7.2)
I do not have a hardness test kit.
I realise there is no way this tank is anywhere near cycled but don't understand why I have no ammonia or nitrites but I have a nitrate reading. I tested my nitrates at the start and retested my tap water when I realised I had a nitrate reading in my tank and both times the tap water was 0ppm for nitrate. I hadn't been worrying about testing for nitrates as I had had no reading for nitrites but just decided to test it anyway about 5 days ago. My water has been maintaining 0 and nitrite ammonia without daily water changes. Just wondering what others think. The fish seem to be very healthy, their colour is lovely and they are very active currently.