Fish in cycling ammonia level--water change?

[padderson]

Hello. I have an established 10g tank with guppies, tetra, and a beta that I started this past summer. I am now fish-in cycling a 20g horizontally oriented tank that is heavily planted, heated to around 78, and has an air stone. I transferred the aqueon filter cartridge from my established tank to the new one to help with the cycling. I do not want to move anything else from the established tank as it has snails.

I started the tank with 3 zebra danios, but one has since passed. After 1 week I added in 4 male guppies. This was not my original intent, but one of the females in the other tank had fry and the male guppies were being very aggressive. So now I have 2 danios and 4 guppies in the new tank and I'm 2 weeks into the cycling process. I did 1 water change at week 1 and have regularly checked water levels and they have been fine.

I did a full water test today. Nitrate was 0ppm, nitrite was 0ppm, ph was 7.6, and ammonia was .25.

My question is whether I should do a water change at this point for the ammonia, even tho the nitrite level is fine. Thx.

 

[librarygirl]

What kind of test kit are you using? If it's strips they can be inaccurate. If it's really .25....it's up to you. Me, I'd be paranoid and do a water change, but .25 probably isn't too harmful, but I wouldn't let it get higher than that.

 

[Mebbid]

Standard practice is to do a 50% water change when the ammonia level hits .5ppm. A .25 level is completely safe for fish.

 

[Fishperson]

I agree, it really isn't a problem at this point. It depends how fast it has been going up. If it goes up 1 ppm a day then you might want to pretty soon. But if it has just been floating around .25 then don't worry about it. My tanks usually test at .25 anyway, even when cycled.

 

[padderson]

Thanks everyone. For what it's worth, im using the full up API freshwater test kit. Not strips. I checked again today and ammonia was still at .25, and nitrates and nitrites were holding steady at zero. I'll think I'll let it ride and do my regular water change this week. Thanks!