audreydelia21

Ok...if anyone is following my troubles with my fish tank. I just came home from work and tested my tank water with my new master test kit.....if anyone wants to know here are the results...

Ammonia...........0.50
Ph.....................7.6
High Range Ph.........7.4
Nitrite...............0 ppm
nitrate..............40 ppm

Now because I am still a newbie to this fish world and also that I have 3 12 inch red bellie pacus in a 40 gal tank. Could someone tell me if these levels are good or bad Tomorrow after work I will do a water change and test it again. Maybe if I can get a hold on this...I can fix the Baby Hewy and Dewy's broken noses.

Thank you all for all the help...I am slowly buying the right supplies for my 40 gal fish tank and after I get the hang of this, I would love to buy a smaller tank for my bedroom.............Audrey
PS. I'm hoping to become a better fish mother to my Hewy, Dewy, and Lewy and also Sucky.

Callum The Cat

Isabella

Callum is right. Pacus will grow way too large for a 40 gallon tank!

Whenever you have ANY ammonia and/or nitrite in your water, and have fish in your tank at the same time, you should be performing DAILY 50% water changes to be removing the accumulating ammonia and/or nitrite. Ammonia and nitrite are very toxic to fish and even smallest amounts of ammonia and nitrite can make your fish very sick or even kill them. To increase the chances of your fish not getting sick (from ammonia and/or nitrite poisoning) and surviving, you should perform those daily water changes until ammonia = 0 and nitrite = 0. Your nitrate is too high too. The label on the Aquarium Pharmaceuticals nitrate test says that a nitrate level of 40 ppm is the highest safe maximum, but I personally wouldn't even go above 20 ppm in any of my tanks. Nitrate level of 40 ppm is very high and it indicates bad water quality. You should definitely lower your nitrate, as well as get rid of ammonia whatsoever.