Nitrates and nitrites help!

I"m going to get straight to the point- I saw the water in my nursery was a bit cloudy (barely) and tested it, to find the nitrates and nitrites were a bit high. I tested the ammonia as well and there is a little in the tank, but still in a safe level. Here's a run-down of the water quality-

NITRATES- in between 40 and 80, between safe and unsafe (Caution/stress?)

NITRITES- 1.0, stress

HARDNESS- about 150, hard

CHLORINE- 0

ALKALINITY- 2, low

PH- 0, acidic

AMMONIA- 0.5 safe

(The hardness in the water came up about a week ago. There's been lots of construction where I live lately, so something with the tap?)

Note: the ammonia, nitrates and nitrites just got higher today. I put a pothos plant in. I heard it helps and I did use it once and it did help

 

Is the tank cycled? If there is even a trace of ammonia it's likely uncycled. You need to do WCs and prime dosing to get those numbers down until you have things cycled.

 

By the way, I have a LOT of water sprite in there and a small amount of hornwart. It's a 5 gallon. I'm kind of surprised. Actually... VERY surprised. There is a TON of water sprite. lol

 

Oh, it's cycled. I've had it for over a year.

 

ammonia and nitrites indicate that it is not cycled. cycled is 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites and some nitrates, less than 40. you need to test your source water to see if there is any ammonia, etc in it.

by you putting "stress" and "safe", I'm guessing you are using dip sticks and not liquid? dip sticks are not accurate at all.

pothos only helps with nitrate. the bacteria turns the ammonia into nitrites, which then is turned into nitrates.

have you changed your filter media recently? rinsed it in water?