sammymanfa
Aquarium Advice Newbie
- Joined
- Feb 17, 2012
- Messages
- 6
hey everybody, im new here and just wanting some advice... I started my tank up about 5 days ago, I washed the stones and plastic plants thoroughly and I've put a few live plants in there. I used a water conditioner initially as I was using tap water. Since then I've been using seachem 'stability' which apparently helps the filter mature. I dont have any fish in the tank yet and I dont plan on putting any in until the filter is doing its job properly, not too keen on the idea of lil fishes suffering.. anyway, I read somewhere about using fish food to help mature the filter so I've been trying it for the last few days. does this actually work or am I making things worse? I dont want to mess anything up. The tank has since gone kind of a cloudy milky white color... I tested the water for the first time today and my PH is currently 8.2, the ammonia levels are at 5, nitrite is at 4 and nitrate is at 0... is this normal? what kind of levels am I looking for? im guessing ammonia should be 0 but what about the rest? Also, should I be doing water changes at all at this point? I haven't really got any idea what I should be expecting. Sorry for the long ramble on but im very confused by it all at the moment so any help or advice would be fantastically appreciated. thanks very much in advance