Tropical Fish Forum

Tropical Fish Keeping Help and Advice => Fishtank Filtration and Cycling => Topic started by: Snoopy27 on April 30, 2016, 09:58:40 AM

Title: Fish Cycling help
Post by: Snoopy27 on April 30, 2016, 09:58:40 AM

Hi everyone, have just done a water test and nitrites are 0, pH is 7.4 but nitrates are 50. Should I be worried about this? I am still rather new to all this! Would be very grateful for any advice. Thanks  :)

Title: Re: Cycling help
Post by: ColinB on April 30, 2016, 10:36:24 AM

Sounds like you need a partial water change to bring the Nitrates down. But first it's worth checking your tap water to see the Nitrate level supplied by the water company. Before I moved house Thames Water kindly supplied me with 40ppm Nitrates so I always used a 50:50 mix of tap and rain water to bring them down. This also had the advantage of  halving the hardness from 16° to 8°GH. Here in mid-Wales, Welsh Water Nitrates are less than 5ppm., and the hardness is 2°GH, so it's very different.

Title: Re: Cycling help
Post by: Fiona on April 30, 2016, 10:53:45 AM

Have you started a fishless cycle Snoopy?

Title: Re: Cycling help
Post by: Sue on April 30, 2016, 11:15:51 AM

I notice that you don't give an ammonia reading. Are you using strips to test the water? If so, you need to get an ammonia tester as well as that is one of the important two (nitrite being the other) which can affect fish health at low levels.

Title: Re: Cycling help
Post by: Snoopy27 on April 30, 2016, 11:37:16 AM

Thanks so much guys. I will continue to do weekly partial water changes and will investigate the nitrate levels in our tap water. I use strips to test the water so will also get ammonia test kit. Really grateful for all your advice. Thanks again  :fishy1: