Joep606

I have some problems...

My pH and alkalinity are good. My water is a little hard, but it is quite a feat to get it down even that low because I have well water and out of the tap it is VERY hard.

Here's the problem...

ammonia - 0.5
nitrite - 10
nitrate - 80

The last two don't make any sense at all to me. I used the Aquarium Pharmasuticals (I know I butchered the spelling on that last word) test for ammonia. But I used test strips for the nitrite and nitrate. I really didn't have the money to buy the whole kit yesterday, but hopefully I can get my parents to cave in and buy it for me.

Anyway, this doesn't make sense. I have had this 10 gallon tank cycling with fish for 3 weeks now. I didn't think I would see levels this high.

I was thinking of doing a partial water change. Would this be wise?

fish_r_friend

yes i believe a water change should do the trick. Do you have any nitrite or nitrate in your tap water? since you have fish in your tank it may take longer to cycle than it would if fishless cycling method was used.

Butterfly

That just means your cycle is almost done. When its complete Ammonia will be 0 Nitrite will be 0 and Nitrates can be 20 or less.
Sometimes takes six weeks to cycle.
Carol

Gunnie

Definately do a water change to get the nitrites down. You are not far from having your tank cycled. Those test strips are known to be inaccurate, but the water change can't hurt anything but make it take a little longer to finish cycling.

Joep606

Cool!

Just did the water change, everything is fine. They're a little freaked out, but swimming along nicely.

I'll do another test later to make sure the nitrites are down. 8)

Joep606

Update:

Ammonia is now 0.0 (Yay!)

Nitrites and nitrates - still a little high, but I'm not sure how accurate the readings are as I'm using test strips to measure it. I use a actual test kit for ammonia and I'm going to buy the rest of the kit on wednesday, so hopefully I can get some more accurate readings then.