Hey all. Hope someone can help. I've been testing water using strips which I've heard aren't all that reliable. Just got an API test kit. May sound a dumb question but what would safe water parameters be? 200 litre tropical tank with sand and gravel substrate and live plants.
Water parameters
- Thread starter DebzN
- Start date
Ideally you want 0ppm ammonia, 0ppm nitrite, and less than 20ppm nitrate. You want nitrates as close to 0ppm as possible but under 20ppm is considered safe for long term health.
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What is the GH (general hardness), KH (carbonate hardness) and pH of your water supply?
This information can usually be obtained from your water supply company's website (Water Analysis Report) or by telephoning them. If they can't help you, take a glass full of tap water to the local pet shop and get them to test it for you. Write the results down (in numbers) when they do the tests. And ask them what the results are in (eg: ppm, dGH, or something else).
Depending on what the GH of your water is, will determine what fish you should keep.
Angelfish, discus, most tetras, most barbs, Bettas, gouramis, rasbora, Corydoras and small species of suckermouth catfish all occur in soft water (GH below 150ppm) and a pH below 7.0.
Common livebearers (guppies, platies, swordtails, mollies), most rainbowfish and goldfish occur in medium hard water with a GH around 200-250ppm and a pH above 7.0.
If you have very hard water (GH above 300ppm) then look at African Rift Lake cichlids, or use distilled or reverse osmosis water to reduce the GH and keep fishes from softer water.
-------------------
What is the GH (general hardness), KH (carbonate hardness) and pH of your water supply?
This information can usually be obtained from your water supply company's website (Water Analysis Report) or by telephoning them. If they can't help you, take a glass full of tap water to the local pet shop and get them to test it for you. Write the results down (in numbers) when they do the tests. And ask them what the results are in (eg: ppm, dGH, or something else).
Depending on what the GH of your water is, will determine what fish you should keep.
Angelfish, discus, most tetras, most barbs, Bettas, gouramis, rasbora, Corydoras and small species of suckermouth catfish all occur in soft water (GH below 150ppm) and a pH below 7.0.
Common livebearers (guppies, platies, swordtails, mollies), most rainbowfish and goldfish occur in medium hard water with a GH around 200-250ppm and a pH above 7.0.
If you have very hard water (GH above 300ppm) then look at African Rift Lake cichlids, or use distilled or reverse osmosis water to reduce the GH and keep fishes from softer water.
Thank you so much for your help. I will get hold of the water company to find out hardness but otherwise from what you have stated, my parameters are ideal. Everything is 0ppm and nitrate just slightly over 0ppm. Thank you again
If you ever get an ammonia or nitrite reading above 0ppm, or a nitrate reading above 20ppm, do a big (75%) water change and gravel clean the substrate every day until the numbers are back down to 0ppm.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.
In an established aquarium with an established biological filter, the only reason you should get an ammonia or nitrite reading is if a fish dies and you don't get it out quickly, you have uneaten food in the tank, or you change/ replace the filter media/ materials.
Replacing filter media is the main reason people get ammonia or nitrite spikes. You can prevent this from occurring by cleaning the filter media in a bucket of aquarium water and re-using the media. The bucket of dirty water gets poured on the lawn or garden outside.
If you have carbon (small black granules) or zeolite (white granules) in the filter, you can remove these and replace them with a sponge.
Once the aquarium is established and the ammonia and nitrite have been sitting on 0ppm for a few weeks, you only need to test once a week or whenever a fish dies, or more frequently if you like.
Keep test kits in a cool dry dark place. I kept mine in an icecream container wiht a lid on and had it on the bottom shelf in the fridge. Just make sure children and animals can't get to the kit/s because they contain some harmful substances if they are consumed you will need to contact poisons information immediately.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.
In an established aquarium with an established biological filter, the only reason you should get an ammonia or nitrite reading is if a fish dies and you don't get it out quickly, you have uneaten food in the tank, or you change/ replace the filter media/ materials.
Replacing filter media is the main reason people get ammonia or nitrite spikes. You can prevent this from occurring by cleaning the filter media in a bucket of aquarium water and re-using the media. The bucket of dirty water gets poured on the lawn or garden outside.
If you have carbon (small black granules) or zeolite (white granules) in the filter, you can remove these and replace them with a sponge.
Once the aquarium is established and the ammonia and nitrite have been sitting on 0ppm for a few weeks, you only need to test once a week or whenever a fish dies, or more frequently if you like.
Keep test kits in a cool dry dark place. I kept mine in an icecream container wiht a lid on and had it on the bottom shelf in the fridge. Just make sure children and animals can't get to the kit/s because they contain some harmful substances if they are consumed you will need to contact poisons information immediately.
Thank you so much for all your help
You give your location as England, so you should ne able to find your hardness on your water company's website. Some make it more difficult than others to find it, so if you have trouble finding the page let us know and we'll see what we can find.
When you do find the right page, you need a number and the unit of measurement rather than vague words. UK water water companies often use a unit we don't use in fish keeping so we need to convert it into the two units we do use.
When you do find the right page, you need a number and the unit of measurement rather than vague words. UK water water companies often use a unit we don't use in fish keeping so we need to convert it into the two units we do use.
This is all I can see that relates to hardness. They say our area is soft water but when using strips they come out as quite hard water. Although I know the strips aren't reliable
Attachments
The number you want is
Hardness Total as Ca = 4.74 mg/l
This unit is not used in fish keeping, it converts to 11.8 ppm and 0.6 dH. This is very soft.
What did your strips give for GH (and the unit on the strip, some use dH, some use ppm)?
I would be inclined to go with what South West Water say as they have expensive lab testing equipment.
As Colin said, the important tests are ammonia and nitrite as anything above zero is harmful to fish. Nitrate is a slower killer, levels above 20 ppm weaken a fish so ideally we should keep nitrate as near to zero as possible, though many areas have tap water nitrate higher than 20 ppm.
pH is not as important as hardness (GH).
Fish originate in water with a certain hardness and their bodies are adapted to living in that hardness. If soft water fish are kept in hard water, their bodies hang on to the hardness minerals and they can develop deposits in their kidneys. Hard water fish kept in soft water suffer calcium deficiency. We should aim to keep fish which originate in water with similar hardness to our tap water.
KH impacts on fish indirectly. KH, carbonate hardness, buffers the water against changing pH. If KH is high it is difficult to change pH; if it is low the pH can be changed easily. In areas with low KH it can be used up leaving nothing to stop pH changing. The natural tendency of a fish tank is to become acidic but KH stops this happening. If the KH is all used up, pH can drop very low quickly, and this is not good for fish. However, even in areas with very low KH, large weekly water changes will top up KH and keep pH stable.
Hardness Total as Ca = 4.74 mg/l
This unit is not used in fish keeping, it converts to 11.8 ppm and 0.6 dH. This is very soft.
What did your strips give for GH (and the unit on the strip, some use dH, some use ppm)?
I would be inclined to go with what South West Water say as they have expensive lab testing equipment.
As Colin said, the important tests are ammonia and nitrite as anything above zero is harmful to fish. Nitrate is a slower killer, levels above 20 ppm weaken a fish so ideally we should keep nitrate as near to zero as possible, though many areas have tap water nitrate higher than 20 ppm.
pH is not as important as hardness (GH).
Fish originate in water with a certain hardness and their bodies are adapted to living in that hardness. If soft water fish are kept in hard water, their bodies hang on to the hardness minerals and they can develop deposits in their kidneys. Hard water fish kept in soft water suffer calcium deficiency. We should aim to keep fish which originate in water with similar hardness to our tap water.
KH impacts on fish indirectly. KH, carbonate hardness, buffers the water against changing pH. If KH is high it is difficult to change pH; if it is low the pH can be changed easily. In areas with low KH it can be used up leaving nothing to stop pH changing. The natural tendency of a fish tank is to become acidic but KH stops this happening. If the KH is all used up, pH can drop very low quickly, and this is not good for fish. However, even in areas with very low KH, large weekly water changes will top up KH and keep pH stable.
Thank you so much for your help. I'd never have been able to work it all out. Much appreciated
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