Question if you will.

[jconyers]

You have all been so great and the tips are fantastic and appreciated.

An easy or not so easy question. On good care (65 gallon 5 fish) my numbers are
Ph 8, ammonia, .25, nitrite, 0 nitrate .20.

My numbers have been the same for three weeks. Soooo do I need a weekly water change? Or when to change? I always did a weekly but am trying to change bad habits.

Also with 5 can I or should I add a few more, 1 or 2. Now would be the time.

Thanks in advance for any input. Sorry for spelling and typing, a four year old is sleeping on me and I cand move.

 

[George9]

How long has your tank been set up? It doesn't look like it's been completely cycled. You want to keep ammonia as low as possible, if it rises above .25 ppm, do a water change.

 

[treemanone2003]

First, is this a new tank ? It doesn't sound as though it's cycled yet. Any value of ammonia is toxic. However, depending on your pH level will dictate the level of toxic ammonia you actually have. Example, a pH of 6.6 with an ammo reading of 1 is not as bad as a pH of 8 with an ammo reading of .1

To go further, it's a 65g with 5 fish. Are they 1-1/2" neons or 14" catfish ? Big difference ??. To do 50% or larger WC's is not a bad habit at all. I do that every two days on my 55g and 100% on Sundays.

About adding fish. If it's not cycled then I would say no. Your filter is establishing bb and to add more would throw things off in a bad way. When it does come time to add fish, I would highly suggest a good QT program. It's easier and cheaper to be proactive than reactive.

 

[jconyers]

Thanks for the reply. By my notes, which the kids and I chart, my ammonia has sat at .25 forthe past 90 days. Nitrites hit 0'at 4/26 and has sat at 0, so I thought that I had cycled. The tank start up was on 3/29. Very careful with the food. It was a fish in cycle attempt. Am I missing something? I will admit, I was the " let's go get a tank and fill the whole thing the same day for instant guy" that was years back. Now I'm trying to do things right and can't figure out where we are wrong. Cool thing is the kids and I have a chart for our tests so it's a cool nightly event. Any thoughts and help is appreciated.

 

[jconyers]

Ohhh and the 5 Africans are no larger than 2" tops

 

[squirrilah fish]

I would check for ammonia in your water source. And you could add more fish. But I'd get this ammonia problem figured out first.

 

[jconyers]

Thx, bad habit. I never did a tap water test. I knew that I should have just forget too.

 

[squirrilah fish]

Also, what are you testing with?
If your treating with Prime (best treatment IMO) and using test strips, and if there is ammonia in the tap water, you can get a "false positive" prime or any other treatment will bind with the ammonia making it non toxic, but it will still show up on a test.

 

[jconyers]

API freshwater master test kit.

 

[squirrilah fish]

That's what I suspect, if it was biological, or from cycling you'd have fluctuating readings, but a consistent ammonia reading leads me to believe it's the water source itself.

 

[squirrilah fish]

API freshwater master test kit.

Hmm... That might not be the case then. From what I understand the API kit only picks up toxic ammonia.

 

[squirrilah fish]

What are you treating the tap water with?

 

[jconyers]

Well I need to establish a base which I neglected to do to I will test the tap in the morning.

 

[jconyers]

Tap treated only with stress zymeplus

 

[jconyers]

Don't beat me up to bad. A rook trying to learn

 

[squirrilah fish]

Ya, that's not enough. And is probably the source of the problem right there. Go pick up some Seachem Prime.
No judgement here. A $20 bottle will last months. And will make the tap water perfectly safe for your fish.

 

[squirrilah fish]

Wait I miss the plus, stress zyme plus water conditioner should be just fine actually.

 

[jconyers]

We'll thank you. I got around to testing the tap water today and it is .25. The same as the tank water.

So I guess a question would be..... Do I leave it sit at .25 since it's held that for many weeks or add something like an ammo lock product when I do water changes. Thanks again, shame on me for never testing the tap water. It's obvious looking back.

 

[squirrilah fish]

I'm not too familiar with stress zyme plus, if it has ammonia removal or not.
Personally I like Seachems prime 1ml treats 1 gallon. And it takes care of almost everything. Chlorine, ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, heavy metals.
You could try ammo lock and see if that helps.
How are your fish though? Do you think the ammonia is effecting them.
To my understanding the Master Kit only detects toxic ammonia, but I could be wrong.
For example when Prime binds to ammonia it is no longer toxic, but still shows up on some tests.

 

[jconyers]

Thx I'll look into it. Fish are great, healthy and feeding great.