New To Hobby... Need Help!

[Assaye]

heres my stats from some cheap test strips i picked up

nitrite & nitrates - 0

total hardness - 75 (soft)

total alkalinity - 300 (high)

PH - 8.4

Those are good results so far (although having a very high pH with soft water is weird) but they are useless without an ammonia result.

Get a liquid ammonia tst kit and let us know the results. Strips are pretty vague and generally not accurate.

 

[Sephroth57]

well the in tank monitor has a PH and ammonia meter, the ammonia is reading under .02

do i need to keep doing water changes daily or can i just watch the meters now and change when needed?

 

[Curiosity101]

I wouldn't trust those in tank readers to be accurate enough. As said (many times), liquid is the most accurate and with it being the fishes wellbeing we're talking about i'd say the most accurate is the only thing acceptable.
Until you have a liquid test kit for ammonia and nitrites I would definitely suggest the large water changes daily for at least the next week.
Just checked online (eBay) and you're looking at $10 for the ammonia kit and $10 for the nitrite kit. Or about $25 for the API freshwater master test kit which will last at least a year (normally longer) and has... Ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, low pH and high pH tests in it. It's a bigger purchase altogether but way cheaper and easier in the long run.

 

[Sephroth57]

Just updating for you guys, everything seems to be going well with the tank now. I do water changes once a week now just to be safe but the readings from my strips seem to be consistant (yeah i know API kit is better =p). the water has gotten a little softer staying around the medium reading on the strip. we added 3 male gourami dwarves and the tank seems like it is at capacity now but they are all getting along fine.

the frogs on the other hand even in their own little 2 gallon tank remain a problem for feeding, the food pellets go down into the gravel and they cant get them. hand feeding them with tweezers works but is still hard.. any suggestions? could i take the gravel out and put sand in or something?

 

[OldMan47]

You could take the gravel out and leave a bare bottomed tank. That way the food would not be able to slip down into the substrate at all.

 

[Curiosity101]

You could take the gravel out and leave a bare bottomed tank. That way the food would not be able to slip down into the substrate at all.

Sand or bare bottomed as old man said.

 

[Sephroth57]

ah i guess i spoke too soon, had some chaos erupt in the tank! my snail died apparently as i awoke a few days ago to see him on the other side of the tank from his shell and the fish picking at him. so i took him out.. and there is little pieces of snail guts all in the water. so i went back to doing the 60% water changes daily. a couple days after this my mickey mouse platy is looking a little white and some of his bottom fin is decaying.. same symptoms the ghost catfish had, so hes prob gonna die. I checked the water and my nitrites have spiked pretty high.... is there anything i can do besides water change

 

[Curiosity101]

Nope. Just lots of big water changes and try to net out/syphon out as much deal snail as possible.

With good clean water most fish heal themselves... so fingers crossed for the platy.

 

[OldMan47]

Huge water changes, over 90% of the water at a go, are the only viable choice for reducing high nitrite levels. I am truly sorry but that is the only real cure for the problem of high nitrites.

 

[Sephroth57]

yeah ive been doing as much as i can,i leave like 4-5 inches in there. now it looks like my dalmation lyretail is getting sick too =(

 

[OldMan47]

Why are you leaving so much water behind? I am really talking about truly large water changes that would have a dalmatian swimming in an inch or less of water while waiting for you to add some back in. I have treated some tanks in trouble to water changes that left guppies wondering if they had enough water to swim in. My black chins, Girardinus metallicus, learned to swim in less than 1/2 inch of water because they were in trouble. Today they are breeding freely in a 20 gallon tank and cannot remember the early problems they had in my tank. Because I was willing to do what was needed those same black chins are reproducing freely and I need to sell some at my next club auction.

 

[waterdrop]

Agree with oldman, those fish will find the last puddle left before you start adding the fresh tap water... They'll be fine.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[owlshead]

How many fish do you have in your 10 gallon tank? Is it cycled?