Help with water conditions please

J

Jennadenny

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Right I know these are not good reading but is there anyway to make them better other than daily water changes:
Ammonia- 0.50ppm
Nitrate- 0.ppm
Nitrite- 0.ppm
High ph- 8.2
Ph-7.6
 
Are you sure both Nitrate & Nitrite are zero??? One or the other should be coupled with the ammonia.

What kind of test are you using?
Strip tests or liquid?
Are they in use by date?
Did you shake the nitrate test VERY well for a full minute? (Important!)

Can you retest the water or take it to your local fish shop for them to test accurately.









<3 >o_o< <3
 
Hi it's the liquid tests I can retest to make sure
 
Hi it's an established tank. I have redone the test and the nitrate has come bac as 20ppm
 
Jennadenny said:
Hi it's an established tank. I have redone the test and the nitrate has come bac as 20ppm
Click to expand...

Cool - that makes more sense :)

It's not dire - so daily changes of
20-30% with aged (24-48hrs if poss) decholorinated water should bring it down reasonably quickly.

How much water have you been changing & how often?
(usually & at the moment)





<3 >o_o< <3
 
Can you post a pic of the tank that way we might be able to see what could be causing high ammonia...

What substrate is on the tank bottom?
Sand / gravel / large pebbles / bare bottom?

Sorry for the quest?fest but it helps narrow down & eliminate possible issues.



<3 >o_o< <3
 
Check your tap water to see if there is ammonia in it. Keeping plants like anacharis will help buffer any little ammonia spikes like that. These type of readings are generally due to overfeeding, dead plants, ect
 
I'm taking about 28 lt out of 140 lt tank is that enough and I put tap safe in the water before I add it, I have 6 rocks, 1 hide (I have to buy a new one for my new axol) I have 3 plants not sure of the names I also have an air stone they seem to really like.
 

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I also feed them 3 small earthworms each a day and 1 frozen cube (thawed) of bloodworms each day, my new axol seemed really thin when I got him/her and was really hungry, seems to be putting weight on nicely now
 
The main worry you should have would be that there are any nitrite (not nitrate) readings... which you haven't got (so nothing to worry about).

No nitrite = the bacteria are working to convert ammonia to nitrate (a good thing).
No nitrate = bacteria not working properly (so your reading of 20ppm shows that the bacteria are working)

Your higher ammonia levels just mean that there is more ammonia being produced than the bacteria can cope with. Your normal regular water changes should keep this in check.

As far as I can see you have nothing to worry about and your tank is working as normal!
 
Ermm....

Have you tested your tap water for nitrate to act as a base reading? Sometimes tap water can have 20ppm or more.

My understanding is that cycling is basically a two stage process. First ammonia is converted to nitrite by one type of bacteria
Then nitrite is converted to nitrate by another bacteria.
If you have high ammonia but no nitrite then perhaps you do not have a cycle. Because. High nitrite readings occur after high ammonia. This is after the first type of bacteria do their stuff and before the second set of bacteria get going.

Just a thought.

I would be doing small frequent water changes and doing tests for ammonia and nitrite to be on the safe side, just until they are both at zero.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
 
Now I think about it...... Last time this happened in one of my fishtanks it was because I had left some vegetable stuff in there and forgot to take it out. It caused an ammonia spike followed by a nitrite spike the next day. I was able to put in an extra filter from another tank and did water changes twice daily until it settled again.


Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
 
In a "cycled" tank with fully functioning biological filtration, the following processes take place:

1. Ammonia (NH4) is released into the system through organic decay and/or animal waste. The "normal" conditions in the portion of the system (= tank) that the animals live in are aerobic (rich in oxygen). There are also lots of "good" bacteria present.

2. Under these aerobic conditions, one type of "good" bacteria (Nitrosomonas) converts the Ammonia into Nitrite (NO2).

3. A second type of "good" bacteria (Nitrobacter) converts the Nitrite into Nitrate (NO3), which is less toxic than Nitrite and Ammonia. This Nitrate can be removed by water changes and is often used as a nutrient by live plants in a tank.

4. In a tank with a deep substrate or with deep, porous filter media, there are also anaerobic (low or no oxygen) microhabitats present. These anaerobic conditions add another step to the process, by allowing another type of "good" bacteria to thrive which break apart the Nitrate (NO3) into free, diatomic Nitrogen gas (N2) and water (H2O). Nitrogen gas is essentially harmless and makes up the largest portion of the air we breathe.

Answering these few questions will help immensely:

How long has the tank been set up?

How warm is your tank?

You appear to have a relatively deep substrate, meaning step #4 (described above) isn't out of the question. How deep is it?

What sort of filtration are you using?


Are you feeding that much EVERY DAY? If so, I'd suggest that you're heavily over-feeding. That could be contributing to the elevated concentrations of nitrogenous waste you're seeing.

-Cole
 
My ammonia is now 0.25 and my nitrite and nitrate are up I just don't understand I've started getting bigger worms can't remember the name but they have 2-3 every other day I've now got my filter on full, it's a aquael fan 2+ I have a bubble thing , and I've now got 6 plants, my husband has said that it shows that something is working for the nitrite and nitrate to go up he said that everything will go up before it goes down I'm just worried he's wrong, :(
 
Cole Grover said:
In a "cycled" tank with fully functioning biological filtration, the following processes take place:

1. Ammonia (NH4) is released into the system through organic decay and/or animal waste. The "normal" conditions in the portion of the system (= tank) that the animals live in are aerobic (rich in oxygen). There are also lots of "good" bacteria present.

2. Under these aerobic conditions, one type of "good" bacteria (Nitrosomonas) converts the Ammonia into Nitrite (NO2).

3. A second type of "good" bacteria (Nitrobacter) converts the Nitrite into Nitrate (NO3), which is less toxic than Nitrite and Ammonia. This Nitrate can be removed by water changes and is often used as a nutrient by live plants in a tank.

4. In a tank with a deep substrate or with deep, porous filter media, there are also anaerobic (low or no oxygen) microhabitats present. These anaerobic conditions add another step to the process, by allowing another type of "good" bacteria to thrive which break apart the Nitrate (NO3) into free, diatomic Nitrogen gas (N2) and water (H2O). Nitrogen gas is essentially harmless and makes up the largest portion of the air we breathe.

Answering these few questions will help immensely:

How long has the tank been set up?

How warm is your tank?

You appear to have a relatively deep substrate, meaning step #4 (described above) isn't out of the question. How deep is it?

What sort of filtration are you using?


Are you feeding that much EVERY DAY? If so, I'd suggest that you're heavily over-feeding. That could be contributing to the elevated concentrations of nitrogenous waste you're seeing.

-Cole
Click to expand...
The sand is about 1-2 inch it sits between 16 and 20 it's normally in the afternoon it gets to 20 and I will do a water change to cool the water,
The tank has been up 3-4 weeks
 
I don't know where I'm going wrong
 

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I'm doing the same water changes with my tropical fish and there water is perfect I just don't know why my axols won't go down
 
Jennadenny said:
I don't know where I'm going wrong
Click to expand...

WOW 0.0 that is a doozy!

I didn't think NitrIte & NitrAte could both be high! & they're both screaming high!

Have you lifted all the ornaments & plants to clean up uneaten food & waste?

I'm at a loss & hoping one of the many wise ones here will jump in & help out.



<3 >o_o< <3
 
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