Water Test Help!

[bradelz]

sorry i inwrong section,kinda needed help asap.
so i tested my 10g tak this morning, results were
ph-7.2
amm-2.0
nitrate-in between 0-5.0
nitirte-1.0
freaked out. did 50% water change,left for couple hours. test agai
ph-7.0
amm-1.0
nitrate-same again
nitrite-0.25
no all th levels of amm and nitrite are dangerous aren'tthey. anyone help??
should i just be doinghourly water changes till settles???

 

[OldMan47]

Since you gave the tank enough time for the water to mix well, the second set of tests should be treated as valid. That means you need at least another 50% water change and I would personally do more like a 75% change to get the ammonia under control. Try to think of it this way. A 50% change gets rid of half the poisons in the tank but a 75% change gets rid of 3/4 of the poisons. It would take two 50% changes to lower the poisons that much and would take more water and twice as long to do it. When you find your water chemistry in sorry shape, don't panic, just do the biggest water change that you can to get things inside the safe area as soon as you can. If you do really big changes, you need to unplug the heater and the filter for a bit but that is not a problem really.

 

[howard_hopkinson]

Are you using a liquid test kit or test strips?

The reason I ask is test strips are notoriously inaccurate.

 

[averynight]

It did not say, but I assume you have fish in the tank. Make sure that your filters are clean from debri and that you are feeding only what the fish will eat. Fish can go some time without food (some research would state 2 weeks) though that is not a really good idea. Feeding bare minimums would allow the fish to get nutrients needed, and eliminate some of the amonia entering your tank. Good quick reaction on the water change.

Yes - the level you were showing is VERY unhealthy to the fish.