Incorrect Tank Readings From Lfs?

Hey all,

So I'm a bit new around here, and I did a fishless cycle on my tank. Petco recommended the 5 in 1 strips for testing, and when I got home I realized that there was no ammonia tab on it. So I've been taking a sample of it in every few days for ammonia testing. All the levels in the 5 in 1 are normalish (I think)...
GH: 30
KH: between 0 and 40
pH: always been a touch low, at about 6-6.5
NO2: 0
NO3: 0

Like I said, I always took the sample to the LFS for ammonia, and it's always come back 0 (which surprised me once because I thought I had a carnival goldfish die of ammonia poisoning about a week into my first try on this aquarium thing).

Anyways, I got my first 2 fish there, and I wanted a few more after almost 2 weeks of having them in the tank, and I was going to quarantine the new ones with the same tank water. The local one didn't have the fish I wanted (but I had the water tested as well...this was yesterday). I went to a different store, and the guy talked me into getting one of the master watertesting kits from API. He also seemed to think that instead of using all RO water, he'd use 50/50 RO and conditioned tap so that there were some minerals in there...thoughts on that?

I got a dumbo-earred molly and 3 cardinal tetras to quarantine and start the process of being able to introduce them to my 20G. I got home and decided I'd play with the watertesting, particularly since I had never done the ammonia before. Well, it came back with 1ppm of ammonia! I thought I was doing it wrong, so I did it with my RO water as well...that one came back 0. I basically dumped the tank water that was going to match my tank and started a quarantine "fish-in" cycling with quickstart, and I added a low amount (only an amount for 5g) of it to my 20 gallon tank ...how much do I change out daily to try to reduce the ammonia for my 20G, and do I just watch and see if the levels are high? They basically can't really tolerate any NH3/NH4, right? Any advice would be appreciated!

Has anyone else had issues with strips not being accurate, or is this probably just the idiocy of my LFS?

 

It's excellent that you bought the Freshwater Master Test Kit. It's far more accurate than strips. If your LFS is using strips to test for ammonia, it's not at all surprising that they gave you incorrect information, because the test strips are not accurate at all.

To reduce ammonia you should be testing regularly (at least daily, for now) and doing large water changes as needed (which will be daily for a while). You can use SafeStart (it's a separate product to QuickStart!) to seed the beneficial bacteria if you like. There are also products that will temporarily bind ammonia but I don't have a lot of experience with them as I feel that doing large, frequent water changes is the better and safer option (these products only bind ammonia for 24-48 hours and then release it back into the tank).

Mixing RO water with tap water is one way to add minerals back, as pure RO water is bad for fish (especially mollies which need fairly hard water). Have you buying this RO water or do you have your own unit? Depending on the quality of your tap water, RO is probably an unnecessary expense for the fish you're keeping.

Good luck. Many people on the forum have been in your situation. It's not unrecoverable. You might lose some fish, but if you are diligent with water changes everyone might pull through.

 

I have an RO spigot, so I've just been using that...would you just use all tap and condition it? Someone told me (at my local fish store, again, which I'm starting to be horrified at the lack of knowledge) that if I used RO, I wouldn't need to condition it, and it would be great. So I've been doing that. The molly looked "iffy" after the first few days, and I read about brackish conditions being favorable, so I added in a bit of aquarium salt. He's been doing better, so I didn't think twice about it. The fish store I went to last night is run by a guy that really seems to know what he's talking about, and he's the one that told me I really should invest in the kit. He told me that most people (especially for freshwater) are fine with just the tap, and it's actually potentially better for the fish. He said at most he would go half RO and half conditioned tap, especially with the molly in there. Whereas I don't "pay" for the RO for the fish, it does run more water through the RO filter (which has to be changed and isn't cheap), so it's still better financially for me. I just thought I was doing well for my fish, not hurting them .

Would you do 50% changes until the NH3/NH4 is at 0?

Are all the parameters unreliable on test strips?

Should I just put them all into my 20 gallon tank at this point to cycle it more? Or leave the newbies in the 5 gallon and be cycling that one simultaneously and just hope for the best and that in a few weeks I can put them all together?

 

Hi, good you got a test kit, the strips are next to useless & not worth the money you spend on them. What are your actual readings now? If you have ammonia showing & no nitrites or nitrates your tank is not cycled & looks as if it's only just starting so as you have fish in you'll need to dose the water with something like seachem prime to detox the water & make the ammonia & nitrites safe (for a time) for the fish & do regular water changes as well. RO water doesn't have any minerals in it & fish need the minerals in water the same as we need minerals to stay healthy so if you use RO you'll need to re-mineralize it, so if your tap water's OK I'd just use that & condition it. I'd also leave the fish in the two tanks or you'll overload the 20g, let both of them cycle before moving the fish about. Take everything a LFS employee tells you with a big pinch of salt (unless you know & trust them very well), they're there to sell you stuff & take your money off you.

 

This is not intended as an attack or shaming, but PetCo is a terrible place to ask for advice on fish. Most of the people that work there have very little experience with fish and have been known to pass on ridiculously false information. It's obvious that you got an employee who has no clue, as you were told pure RO water is fine, and also that a Molly is a good fish to put with Cardinal Tetras (the problem with that is the two species need very vastly different water parameters).

All parameters are unreliable on the strips, especially once they've been open for a while (though you should not trust them even when fresh). The test kit seems complicated at first, I know! But after a few days it'll become second nature, and once your tank is properly cycled you won't have to test daily anymore.

Reverse Osmosis units will remove chlorine if the membrane is in good shape, but most people add conditioner just in case. Conditioner is pretty cheap- I just spent €15 on a bottle that is enough to treat 250 gallons. I'd be really disappointed in a LFS that sold me a RO unit so that I didn't have to buy water conditioner.

You probably have saved your Molly's life by adding salt, as plain RO is generally fatal for fish. Cardinal Tetras, on the other hand, prefer soft water (but not quite as soft as pure RO). They probably won't do well long-term in a brackish aquarium (which is what you have now that you've added salt).

I would do 75% changes on every day that you see ammonia above 0.50 with the test. When it drops below 0.50 you can start doing 50% changes until you reach zero.

I can't really recommend that you keep all of those fish together- like I said, they have vastly different requirements in terms of water. It might work out, but it'll be very difficult to keep everyone thriving.

 

If you'd like to keep your molly in brackish water long term, you should switch to marine salt. True brackish tanks are achieved with marine salt, not aquarium salt. Marine salt has a different mineral content and is what marine and brackish fish encounter in the wild.

This is the salt I personally used, but I'm sure there's others.

Instant Ocean Sea Salt for Marine Aquariums, Nitrate & Phosphate-Free

 

Captive bred molly's don't really need brackish water they're fine in fresh & also breed quite prolifically being live bearers so if you want to keep them have a plan for the fry.

 

Captive bred molly's don't really need brackish water they're fine in fresh & also breed quite prolifically being live bearers so if you want to keep them have a plan for the fry.

100% agree that Molly's don't require brackish. Was just saying that if brackish was the route OP wanted to go, that aquarium salt is the wrong way to do it.

 

100% agree that Molly's don't require brackish. Was just saying that if brackish was the route OP wanted to go, that aquarium salt is the wrong way to do it.

It's true that Mollies don't require brackish, but OP was using pure reverse osmosis water without any added minerals, which would likely have killed his Molly had he not decided to add salt.

 

It's true that Mollies don't require brackish, but OP was using pure reverse osmosis water without any added minerals, which would likely have killed his Molly had he not decided to add salt.

I understand that and agree. I'm on RO water and understand the need to remineralize. Was just trying to help out in the brackish department as I used to run a brackish tank, not saying OP made some huge mistake.

 

Definitely don't do RO without some sort of re-mineralization. I did that for a while when I didn't know better and it led to big problems with ph crashing and my gold fish getting sick. If your tap water tests ok, then you can probably just use all tap water and forget the RO.

I use a little bit of RO but only for bringing the temp of my water up to tank level (I boil the kettle and put some in the bucket) the only reason it is RO is because that is the only water that ever goes in the kettle

I've got mollies and Cardinals in my tank. The water may be a little soft for the mollies (KH4 and GH5) but they seem to be doing fine, and I've had my second lot of fry (two from the first batch avoided being eaten and are now big enough that the parents don't seem to view them as a snack). Depending on which site you go to the recommendations for Cardinals vary quite a lot. I lost four of 10 cardinals in the first two days (advice here was it looked like columnaris), but tomorrow will be two weeks that the remaining six have been in the tank and touch wood they are looking healthy.

I'd agree that if mollies were kept in brackish conditions then cardinals would not be an option, but mollies in relatively soft water I think match ok with Cardinals. I wasn't originally planning on having mollies, was just how things panned out. So far though they seem to be doing well.

Tony.

 

Awesome. So a few things. I'm here to learn, and I don't mind people posting about my mistakes. I'm very much realizing Petco isn't a great source for knowledge, but I (unfortunately) didn't know that at the time. So the molly was bred here in the US (I did look up about brackish water being more common overseas or back in FL), so I figured the parameters of the cardinals and molly should overlap at that point. I will admit I was mostly looking at temperature though, and I'm still learning about all the mistakes I've made in my research (I did indeed say I was new at this).

I have a feeling I'll be hanging around these forums for a bit, so you'll get to know that if you're not completely rude and in my face (no one here has been, IMHO!), I'm fine having my mistakes pointed out. In fact, I kind of want them pointed out. It helps me learn, and that's why I'm coming here (instead of Petco!) Also, as for having my LFS sell me an RO filter for the fish, I didn't do that. I just happened to have it, and knowing that it didn't have the chlorine, I asked if it would be better than tap. The answer (at 3 different pet stores (hence why I'm trying to get advice somewhere like here or the *really cool* store) was that it would be great. None of them mentioned tossing in conditioner to remineralize at all.

Has anyone used ammolock to try to diffuse the ammonia in the tank? Would you still do water changes with it?

Also, speaking of being a newbie with the master kit, how do you all recommend washing the test tubes that come with it?

 

I wash my tubes with ro water after the test. And also shake some tank water in them and discard just before filling for the next test.

I've seen that some people color code the tubes and lids so they always use the same tube and lid for the particular tests

Tony.

 

Now that you've got the test kit, it would be a good idea to test your water from the tap (not RO) chances are it'll be fine and you won't have to mess with RO water, or maybe you can do a 50/50 split. Personally I'm on a well with very bad water so full RO is a must for me, but most people on these forums strictly use tap water or a mixture of ro /tap.

In regards to ammolock, I've not personally used it but there is some debate on using it. If it truly "locks" up the ammonia then your nitrifying bacteria can't eat it and they will not continue to grow.

Doing a fish in cycle is unfortunately going to take a lot of water changes. Basically you want to keep ammonia and nitrite as low as possible, and the two combined shouldn't be allowed to go over 1ppm but lower is better. If you're able to buy Seachem prime I would recommend it. Its a water conditioner that actually helps protect fish from some ammonia (and reportedly nitrites but I'm not familiar with how/if that's true). This product doesn't lock up the ammonia but will turn it into a safer form for the fish but the bacteria can still eat it. This effect only lasts for 24 hours though, so you'll have to do another water change and add prime.

 

If I seem "in your face" or rude at any point, it's unintentional! I do tend to be extremely blunt which some people misinterpret. But I am not a mean or angry person.

Of course fish breeders can and do harden or soften water for certain species- this is necessary especially for breeding- so you can't simply say "they came from the US, therefore they are used to similar water parameters." Places like PetCo and LFS tend to rely on quick turnover and let you worry about how to keep the fish alive long-term.

Personally I am an advocate of researching a species before you buy it and walking into the store with a plan that involves some knowledge of the species you want, rather than impulse buying whatever catches your eye. But I also fully understand impulse buys. I do my best to keep it to dry goods myself (I keep impulse buying substrate, I have enough for at least thrice over the tanks I have!).

I am not a fan of Ammolock, it only binds the ammonia for 24-48 hours and then releases it again. So water changes are still very necessary as when the ammonia releases you suddenly have double the ammonia in your tank, as the fish will have been making fresh ammonia constantly, meaning that you will need to do a much larger water change when you do it. That said, it binds ammonia in a way that makes it still available to the nitrifying bacteria so it won't halt a cycle, so it's okay in an emergency when you absolutely cannot do a water change that day, as long as you can do one the next day. But using it regularly would not be a good idea and it's not a substitute for water changes. (Please note I came to understand this all from other forum posts and discussions with my 25 year old son who is into chemistry- I am no chemist myself!).

 

LOL, Lilirose, I actually appreciate the blunt nature. I get accused of the same. Anytime you try to dabble in a new hobby, you form opinions and thoughts, and especially when it's new, you find oftentimes they are often nuanced statements that you took as fact across the board. I realize when I said they were bred here that was a pretty broad generalization...it was something I came across that was a stereotype; it was really the only thing I had to go on. At this point, I'm more going by the fact that my molly is still alive in the water I'm keeping him in...
One of my bigger mistakes (please realize I actually feel pretty stupid for this one, and it doesn't need confirming at this point ) I'm realizing now is that I was paying attention to temperature and assuming that most fish would cross over at a "normal" pH and the only other thing I really had to worry about was the aggressiveness of the fish...freshwater was freshwater after all, right? Ummm...no...
So...here we are.
Since the ammonia kind of snuck up on me, I've actually been using the ammolock to try to keep the ammonia locked (in the hopes that it does still increase the bacteria and won't hurt the fish) after performing the normally recommended water changes to try to reduce it. It's still not coming down as quickly as I'd like though.

Lilirose, do you agree with AngryRainbow's recommendation for seachem prime? Also, I was wondering if the debate was actually on this forum and where I could find it?

 

To my knowledge there's no singular debate, but maybe you'll find something from the search bar. I more ment that it depends on which member you're speaking to. Some will recommend using ammo lock, others are strictly against it.

I have never personally used ammo lock so I have no opinions/have never researched as to how exactly it locks the ammonia.

I would recommend taking what you learn on the forums as a starting point for your own research. Believing anyone (myself included) without doing your own research on top of it can lead you to the same situation as believing your lfs