maddog

I have a quick question, which may seem silly but I'm learning here. I have a 50 gallon tank that I inherited. It currently has 5 fish in it. We want to introduce some new fish but I just tested the water and the nitrite and pH is high. I went and bought some things to lower both levels however I'm afraid to add it since the fish that are in the tank seem to be doing ok. I figure the water might not be good for new fish but the current fish seem acclimated to it. Am I worried needlessly and adding the stuff to reduce both level should not cause harm to the current fish?

Thanks for any help.

Pete

lilsoccakid

Hi, and welcome to fishlore!

the best way to lower the nitrite leval would be to do a partial water change. Do a 15% water change every other day until the leval is down. Chemicals can be harmfull to fish so try the changing of water first. Good luck!

COBettaCouple

If you can treat your tank with a water conditioner called Prime, it will help the fish a lot by controlling the nitrites. Don't worry about a high pH, as long as it's steady, the fish are acclimated to it. we have high pH but it stays steady.

Sabi

i'd go with water change being the best to bring nitrates down.

dacota34

I brought my nitrite down by doing a 50% water change.

sgould

How long has this tank been set up with fish in it? If it is an established tank, there really should not be any nitrite at all in it. Reguardless of how long the tank has been running, I would not recommend adding any more fish until that level reaches and maintains 0. It sounds like the tank has either never cycled, or is in the midst of a mini-cycle for some reason.

COBettaCouple

what do you use for testing your water?

Tazmiche

personally i wouldn't add any fish right now. i only started keeping Tropical fish in sept/oct '06 and can say for sure take your time adding fish!! Many reasons for it

1/ fish need time to settle
2/tank...filter ...need to adjust
3/you need time to addapt to fish keeping , a force that will consume you!
4/once all inplace you will go nuts buying new fish

Take time

maddog

Thanks everyone for getting back to me. I've started to do the water change little by little and will let you know if that does the job. Now if the PH is high, that should be all right? Although I would think that will go down with the water change as well.

I will look for Prime and as for testing the water I have strips that I picked up from the store to test the water.

The tank has been around for awhile but like I said I inherited it, so I wasn't taking care of it until now.

sgould

Unless there is something in your tank that is altering the pH, it should be the same as when it came out of the tap. As long as it stays at a stable, consistent level, don't worry if it is "high" or "low". Stable pH is much more important than some "ideal" reading, as most fish adapt to pH without incident. Levels that vary by .3 or more in a short period, however, stress them.

COBettaCouple

those strips are not really reliable, unfortunately. a liquid testing kit is the way to get accurate results. i've seen members report HUGE differences in the results after switching to the API master kit from strips.