hi I just tested a week ago for ph, nitrate,nitrites, and hard water but I'm having a outbreak of nitrates and nitrites.... ph: 6.0 nitrates: 80 nitrites: 10 carbonate hardness: 40 general hardness: 0 I also have 1 nitrite snail (my second one died ) 5 guppies 4 zebra danio 1 bristlenose pleco 4 (peppered) Cory doras (planning to get two more) and also planning to get a few gouramis if a I can I have used API test strips 5 in 1 are my fish safe? I have vacuumed and changed 25% water and the tests on nitrates and nitrites have gone lower but I still worry for the rest....
API test strips are not that accurate imo, you should switch to the masterkit. Also, nitrates 80 is high but not crazy highm your nitrites at 10 ppm are too high and will harm the fishes. Was your tank cycled or did it lose the cycle? What about ammonia ? You need to perform 70% water change daily until you get the nitrite down below 1ppm and keep dosing prime with each change. Prime will let you handle about 1ppm without harming the fishes. Not sure about your tank size and overstock . understock situation. You are looking at a fish-in cycle at this point. You will need to change water every 2-3 days to keep nitrites below 1 ppm and prime until you get to regular 0 ammonia and nitrites.
the strangest thing though is that the fish don't seem sick... they are happy and swimming perfect eating and not stress.....
NitrItes at 10?? You probably want to the getting API freshwater master test kit, because if that were true everything would be dead. Snails can hardly tolerate .25, fish can tolerate more. Since some are showing up, it's probably a good idea to do several water changes to get it down. It will help with nitrates too. Do a 50% today and tomorrow. And definitely new test kit, having 40 kH with no gH is actually impossible as the kH shows up as part of the gH. I hope you can get this all figured out, glad your fish are still doing well. And long term, to help with nitrates you could put a pothos plant in the tank/HOB filter if you have one, as long as you don't have cats and or dogs. Also nitrates really should be kept at twenty or below, contrary to what the test says, especially if you have invertebrates like snails, 40 can be harmful to them
I agree with Rtessy, the fishes would be struggling at that readings. Get a API freshwater master test kit and recheck your water parameters.
I am gonna get it I am just so busy I have literally 5 things to do each day and exactly my point I can't understand why the test readings are so high yet my fish aren't hurt,dead, or stressed!!
It's because those test readings are not accurate; those are not the actual readings present in the tank. Not to be harsh, but if those were the readings everything would have died very very quickly.
