How often to test water and what shoudl I expect once I stock my tank?

[talieandsasha]

Hi,
I did the fishless cycle with pure ammonia and finished and stocked my tank over 2 days.

15 gallon, 1 betta, 4 pgymy corys, 6 white spot tetras, 5 king blue tetras


How often do you recommend testing all parameters? my last test was 24hrs ago, and today's gave me this: ammonia seems to be between 0 and .25, nitrite at 0 and nitrate at 10. Does this seem so far so good?

Do you recommend doing a pwc at 20, 30 or 40 ppm nitrate? and if the nitrates stay at a reasonable level, do you still do a pwc once a week?

 

[Sgtdap]

Nitrates are not the only thing you are cleaning out when you do a PWC, it is just the by product we can test for. Once you are good and stable most people would tell you to test once a week. If you are doing weekly PWCs then just test before then.

Overall your levels look pretty good. How large is your filter? If you ever see ammonia over the .25ppm do a PWC immediately. 2ppm is toxic to your fish.