I don’t really trust the shop as they were happy to sell me fish into a high PH, high ammonia tank. I don’t want my fish to be unhappy/dead! What’s the next step? The shop recommended another water change in a few days, wait a few days, then go back for another test. I’m going to add a piece of driftwood today, as it’s got planes but no wood and I’ve read wood is great for the bacteria!
Posted by Difficult-Thought-61
4 Comments
Forgot to say, I’ve added aqua start, both when I first filled the tank and when did the 50% water change.
Did they explain how the water change was going to affect the ph?
You should read up on the cycle to understand what is going on in your tank.
Ph doesn’t matter so much, so long as it’s not wildly out of line and is stable.
7.4 is not wildly out of line.
As for the ammonia, research what cycling a tank means. You actually need up to 4ppm ammonia in the tank to start the cycle, provided that you don’t have any stock in the tank.
It’s a good call to not buy any fish yet. Putting fish in an immature tank is bound to give you issues that can kill the fish.
To make sure I’m understanding you correctly: you did NOT get fish right?
In that case this is easy, just let the tank mature on it’s own.
Ammonia-eating bacteria will slowly colonize the tank and do their magic over the next few weeks, and the plants will help by starting to eat up the nitrate.
Once you can test for 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite and 0 nitrate you do a big 50% water change, test again the next day to be safe then you are safe for fish.