Tank emergency help please

[jennyhannah2011]

Hello

I set my tank (72 litre ) up last Sunday. Used my old gravel and filter in the new tank to get things going.

Have put a bit of fish food in and done a water change 20 percent as it was cloudy.

Today my api master test kit arrived and I got these results

Am-1ppm
Nitrate- 40-80
Nitrite - 0-0.25
Ph- 8.2

Niw I genuinely havnt a clue what this means or if I need to do anything. My original plan was to get a few platys tommorow but now I have these readings what does it mean?

My tank is not planted and has a sand substrate and some bits of driftwood

Am going to take a sample to lfs tommorrow too but any help would be grand.

Tested my tap water and it's redding 80-160. Red not orange. I'm gutted. Spent so much time and money getting this far and now I don't know what to do. I have no money left and just feel like giving up with this.

 

[jimsz]

You can read about the results and what they mean here

http://www.apifishcare.com/pdf/Freshwater_Master_Test_Kit_34_Insert.pdf

 

[librarygirl]

So you used old gravel and filter from another established tank? Is this a tank that you own? Is it still running? If so what are the readings from that tank? If the filter media dried out or was without food (an ammonia source such as fish) for a long period of time it's possible that the bacteria are no longer viable.

So the nitrate may be coming from your tap water. With nitrates that high from the tap there are some things you can do to help lower it, such as using Purigen in the filter and/or adding a lot of certain types of plants that thrive off of high nitrates. You could also cut the tap water with half Reverse Osmosis water.

The ammonia and nitrite could be coming from the old filter.

If you can get some pure ammonia, you might want to try dosing the tank as you were doing a fishless cycle and test the tank daily and see what it does (e.g. if ammonia rises/falls, if nitrites rises/falls, etc) before adding fish. Guides on the various types of cycling can be found here Guide to Starting a Freshwater Aquarium - Aquarium Advice