Tropical Fish Forum
Tropical Fish Keeping Help and Advice => New Fishkeepers => Topic started by: Biggy1988 on March 25, 2016, 01:23:16 AM
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hi all not long been on the site and found so many things useful.
what are the ideal conditions as in water hardness , nitrate . nitrite , ph , ect
:raspberries
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Hi Biggy! :wave:
Ideal water conditions are 0 for ammonia, 0 for nitrItes, 20 for nitrAtes. However, some people's tap water contains more nitrAtes and so their nitrAte reading from their tank water may be higher - Sue will correct me if I'm wrong but I think you should aim for no higher than 20 above the tap water. So, if your tap water reads 20 for nitrAtes, then you should aim to keep your tank water under 40. Many fish don't do well if the tank water nitrAte level is above 20, though.
As for water hardness and PH, there isn't really a set answer for that as it depends on the type of fish you have. For example, the very soft water I have is ideal for the types of fish I have but would not be ideal for guppies, mollies, platies or dwarf puffer fish. Someone with very hard water would have ideal conditions for those type of fish but it would not be ideal for neon or cardinal tetras. Softness/hardness of water is a more important factor than PH in terms of suitability for fish, but generally a PH between 6.5-8.5 is fine and some fish do very well with a lower and possibly even higher PH than that. (Very, very soft water does run the risk of a PH crash, though, although there are ways to counteract that such as a piece of limestone rock in the tank.)
Hope that helps.
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You mentioned in your other thread that you have the 6 in 1 strip testers. Those should have a reading for GH. You can check how accurate it is by looking for your tapwater hardness somewhere on your water company's website.
You have mollies and a bristlenose. Mollies like hard water and don't do well in soft water. Bristlenoses are fine in soft and hard water.
It is much easier to keep fish that like the water you have rather than try to alter the water to suit the fish you want.
And fcmf is quite right, nitrate should not be allowed to go higher than 20 above the level in your tap water. Once a tank is cycled and you do weekly water changes, the nitrate level will increase slowly between water changes. That tap + 20 is the highest it should get just before a water change.