Perfect Water??

[vaquero]

How perfect can you get a freshwater tank to be? Here are my numbers as of this morning:

Nitrates-40 PPM
Nitrites- 0 PPM
Hardness- 150 PPM ( we have very hard water)
Chlorine- 0 PPM
Alkalinity- 115 PPM
Ph- 6.5 PPM ( low Ph in Everett water)
Ammonia- 0 PPM
Is this good, great, or excellent for my 55 gallon tank??

 

[shellieca]

How perfect can you get a freshwater tank to be? Here are my numbers as of this morning:

Nitrates-40 PPM
Nitrites- 0 PPM
Hardness- 150 PPM ( we have very hard water)
Chlorine- 0 PPM
Alkalinity- 115 PPM
Ph- 6.5 PPM ( low Ph in Everett water)
Ammonia- 0 PPM
Is this good, great, or excellent for my 55 gallon tank??

Well, your ammonia & nitrItes are great; 0 is what you want. The nitrAtes are a little high, ideally you want them lower than 40, preferrably lower than 20. How long does it take for them to get to 40? My tap tends to run about 20 on nitAtes so by the end of a week I'm pretty close to 40, I do a big water change & all is good again. Personally, I don't test hardness, chlorine, alkalinity & seldomly test Ph, although I probably should.

 

[BBradbury]

Tank Water Chemistry

How perfect can you get a freshwater tank to be? Here are my numbers as of this morning:

Nitrates-40 PPM
Nitrites- 0 PPM
Hardness- 150 PPM ( we have very hard water)
Chlorine- 0 PPM
Alkalinity- 115 PPM
Ph- 6.5 PPM ( low Ph in Everett water)
Ammonia- 0 PPM
Is this good, great, or excellent for my 55 gallon tank??

Hello v...

Unless you keep and breed rare fish, then you don't need to worry about pH, hardness or any of that, it's not important. The fish will adapt to the majority of public water supplies.

Your nitrates could be lower, the 20 ppm range is about right. Nitrates at low levels won't hurt your fish, so there's no reason for them to be any lower or at "0".

If you change half the water in the tank weekly, you don't need to worry about the water chemistry, it will always be stable. By changing out large amounts of water every week, the water isn't in the tank long enough for toxic chemicals to build up.

Just a couple of thoughts.

B