Worried about water chemistry

[Rory the cat]

Hi guys

As those who've read my other posts will know my tank is long established but long neglected by the previous owner. I've been maintaining it for 2 months and it has been improving. I had 0 ammonia & a small amount of nitrite until last week.

I added fish (5 neons, 2 corys, 1 puffer) on Wednesday and did a 30% water change today. I checked my water an hour ago and it is -

16 gal tank, temp 26c

ammonia 0.1mg/l
NO2 0.1mg/l
N03 75mg/l
PH 8

I think it is partially down to overfeeding - but I haven't fed since Wednesday. I also guess some of the levels are down to adding new fish. How bad are these readings?

How do I get this down further - I am trying everything. Doing 30% weekly water changes, rinsing the filter in used water & I have a 'Tea bag' in there too!

I just put a bit more Stress Zyme in - should I do another water change tomorrow and daily for a week? I'll leave the gravel alone for a while - how about planting a few 'real' plants in there (I have fakes at the mo).

Help

 

[Cheese Specialist]

That's very high nitrAte, what is the level of your tap water?

Just do small partial water changes daily for now, I don't think stress zyme will do any good but stress coat or melafix may be beneficial to help prevent the fish getting sick from the increased stress.

How much are you feeding? Over feeding is no good for the fish in more than one respect, you should try to stop that but IMO you shouldn't leave the fish for all that time all of a sudden.

 

[Sasha]

To help bring down your water chemisty, do a 20 - 25% water change daily. I feed my fish 3 times a week (Mondy, Wednsday and Friday) so to avoid overfeeding. Siphoning (or vaccuming) the gravel would help too by removing uneaten food and watse. Next time, you may just want to add a couple fish at once. If you cycled you tank with the Fishlees Cycle, then you could add a large load of fish. I added 25 fish at once, which is far beyond the recommended load if I cycled with fish. The tank stayed safe, but I tested my water daily and everything was normal.

 

[Rory the cat]

Just tested tap water - 75mg/l. I think we have our culprit!!!!

What can I do about this - should I use R/O water or is there something I can add (apart from the dechlorinator) before I put it in the tank?

 

[Cheese Specialist]

Just tested tap water - 75mg/l. I think we have our culprit!!!!

What can I do about this - should I use R/O water or is there something I can add (apart from the dechlorinator) before I put it in the tank?

I don't know much about RO but you might want to do something. That's very high for tapwater. I know London is about 40 in places. I am lucky, I only have 3 or less.

I am not sure if there's something you can add either but there must be a way round it!!

 

[Rory the cat]

Should my fish be okay overnight do you think?

 

[Cheese Specialist]

How do the fish look? NitrAte is the lesser of three evils but I'd do a 20-30% waterchange if you can to try and reduce them, but the NO3 will never reduce.

 

[Rory the cat]

Fish are looking fine, quite happy.

I will wait until tomorrow and get up to the LFS for something to add to the tap water and do a 30% change. Seems if I add more tap water tonight I am just adding more nitrates.

 

[Rory the cat]

I ended up doing a 30% water change last night (couldn't sleep). Fish still seem fine.

Did another test today, everything the same although the nitrate appears to have dropped very slightly. Am off to the LFS in a bit.

Fed them some bloodworm today - got snapped up in less than 30 secs, so also gave them a little bit of Daphnia which went in about 2 mins.

 

[Cheese Specialist]

Cool, try not to feed them too much when there's amonia present in the water. Maybe you need a better filter?

Lerty us know how you get on at the pet shop

 

[Rory the cat]

Cool, try not to feed them too much when there's amonia present in the water. Maybe you need a better filter?

Lerty us know how you get on at the pet shop

Yup - I was watching like a hawk when I fed them to scoop out anything left over. The bloodworm was gone so fast (mostly eaten by the Puff & Sciss) that I gave them Daphnia to give the smaller fish a go - that was completely gone within 2 minutes. I hadn't fed since Wednesday, so I needed to feed something. No more until Monday now I think.

My filter is only 2 months old - Interpret IPE duo 3. I replaced the old filter in the tank. I've not rinsed it in tap water and it has carbon in there too. It is more powerful than the tank requires AND I have it on the highest setting at the mo.

I'm off to the LFS to attempt to unravel this conundrum - there must be something I am missing. Def no dead fish or excessive mulm in the Aquarium. I think I'll buy some basic plants. I have a feeling the key is the tap water - even with dechlorinator in the levels are still 50 mg/l.

I wonder if we have anything dead in our hot water tank upstairs in the loft...must get that checked out as that might account for the high nitrate in the water.

 

[Cheese Specialist]

I think live plants would be a very good idea to help with NitrAte, I have also just read that plants use amonia as a better sourse of nitrogen.

 

[Rory the cat]

Right then. Have been to the LFS. Apparently the water around this area is very poor for fish. I live on the South Downs, and the water filters through the Downs into the reservoir - the Downs are 99% chalk, hence the high nitrates. The inner city of Brighton is better but I am in a more rural area where the reservoir is very chalky. They are also putting a lot of chlorine & fluoride in. Apparently they fluoride the water at the weekend! So have been advised to do all water changes that involve tap water on Weds eve when the water quality for fish is best. This is what the LFS do.

Have been given 20l r/o water have put in 10l today and will put in 10l tomorrow. Got to re-test about 5pm today. Not put anything in the r/o this time around as the LFS advised that it is not necessary. After this will get more r/o and do changes weekly of 90% treated r/o and 10% treated tap - as advised, at least for the next month.

Also have several new plants nestling in my aquarium, have put in lots of stress-zyme and stress-coat.

Feeling much relief now. The LFS was great - I was all ready to buy all these different products costing loads, but they were really honest about what I didn't need to buy.

 

[Becca]

Yeah, I finally found an LFS that's great...except, I only go there when a certain guy is working. His philosophy is almost everything can be corrected in your tank with some time, patience and a few water changes. I was really suprised how many products sit on his shelves (thanks to his manager, etc) that aren't needed and only harm the fishies in the long run. D