Hi Colin,
Thank for your response! And no worries I didnt take it negatively, for me its all good learning!
I am with Thames Water. I had a look on their site and they say the water is hard:
Calcium carbonate(CaCO3): 263 ppm
Other hardness measurements
Degrees Clarke:18
Degrees German(DH):15
Degrees French:26
The tank I have is a Aquael Classic 100 Aquarium, its 200 litres, 100cm length, 40cm width and 50cm depth. It came with an internal filter which we are using. Below is a link to the tank if it helps:
http://www.petplanet.co.uk/product.asp?dept_id=167&pf_id=57632Its a planted tank with a variety of different plants (please dont ask me which species
haha), a large root ornament, a bubbling volcano w. airstone and red LED, a bubbling treasure chest ornament, and icelandic lava rocks and two easter island statues. We have a dual air pump providing the bubbles to the chest and volcano.
We'll be sure not to add anymore fish soon.
Although we haven't been testing the water everyday we have done so every other day or every two days. Before we put in the fish (after the 2 weeks of no fish) our Ammonia was 0, Nitrite was around 5ppm, and Nitrate at around 40ppm.
After day 5 of putting in the fish, the ammonia did rise to 0.25, the other parameters stayed as they were noted above.
After day 8 the ammonia was back at 0, the nitrite was at 2ppm, and Nitrate at around 40ppm.
After day 10 ammonia was still 0, nitrite was 0, and Nitrate was between 20-40ppm
We did another test on day 13 and the results were the same as day 10. It was because of this big decrease in nitrite that we though the tank was beginning to stabilize. So Day 14 we swapped the 6 danios for the other fish we wanted (brittlenose, siamese algae eater, 4 guppies and the 1 cory).
And don't worry the shark will be the very last thing I add much later down the line