I'm so glad I found this site, if it wasn't I would still be believing everything my boyfriend told me (wrong) about fishtanks.

I started with a 10g tank with 2 orandas and the "ONLY" thing that I needed to do was to feed them and change the water when it was dirty.
I added a pearscale last month.

Well... I felt in love with my GF and I begun finding information on how to take care of them and found this site... I LOVE IT!

Anyway.. I got a 55g for my B-day last week and moved my gravel to the new tank and also got a white oranda.
Yesterday I bought my FIRST TEST KIT!
I love it! I'm not sure if my readings are fine or what I should be looking for.
I kind of know that my PH should be 7.2-8.4 or something like that and ammonia should be 0, I'm not sure about NitAte and NitrIte.
This are my results:
PH 8.0
Ammonia 0.5
Nitrite 0.5
NitrAte 10
temp is 68-70

Please help!!
Thanks so much for teaching people like me what is the best thing to do.

It looks like the biofilter bacteria are working on getting up to speed in your new tank. Your tank will be cycled when you see both ammonia and nitrIte at 0ppm and nitrAte rising.

With a pH of 8, you're *really* going to have to stay on top of keeping ammonia down below .5ppm because ammonia is more toxic at higher pH. Do you have any Amquel or Prime?

Would you test your tap water for ammonia and nitrAte?

NitrIte is also toxic. I'd add salt at 1 teaspoon per gallon of water. predissolve in tank water and make sure it disperses well when you add it. Be sure to use non-iodized salt with no other additives. It enters thru the gills and binds up the red blood cells keeping them from being able to carry oxygen. Salt helps protect against nitrIte poisoning because it competes with nitrIte for uptake thru the gills. When you do partial water changes just add 1 tsp of salt per gallon changed till nitrItes come down to 0, then you can skip adding any more salt. Your partial water changes will then remove it over time.

Go light on feeding for now, to reduce ammonia production while your biofilter bacteria catch up.

I haven't tested my tap water yet and they only thing that I have added to my water is stress coat.
I will go to the store and get Amquel.
I did put salt last week when I started the tank (Doc Wellfish's Aquarium Salt)
and used it acordingly to direccions (can't remember right this sec.)
I will add more salt like you have recomended.
I have been feeding them twice a day but I think my b-friend has been feeding them in the middle of they day.
He says I'm starving them... I'm just gonna have to keep an eye on HIM!

What else can I do to keep my ammonia levels low?

Thank you so much for your help!

Princess, uneaten food and any other decaying organic matter adds ammonia to the water. If your good intentioned boyfriend is feeding them big snacks between meals that could be contributing to the problem. The goldie's poop and urine releases ammonia as well. More food, more poop, more ammonia!

With your pH, you should be able to rely mainly on Amquel to keep ammonia down. The reason I was asking about ammonia in your tap water is that partial water changes will also help keep ammonia down as long as your tap water doesn't contain ammonia. Mine does.

Jack is correct on the feeding. You can use a turkey baster to remove any uneaten food or poop. Might be a good idea to hide the food from your boyfriend.

Make sure you keep track of how much salt you're adding. It doesn't evaporate and the only way to remove it is thru partial water changes, so the concentration can creep up on you if you're not keeping track of it.

Do you have a two bottle ammonia test?

I did a water test yesterday on my tap water and it is 7.6
I also got Amquel last night and put some on my tank I also added salt to it.
I will do another water test today.
I will post my results in the morning.
I don't have a computer at home now, so I will have go to my mom's
to post it
Great idea DataGuru!!! I will hide the food from him, see if he messes with my tank again!



I have 2 bottles for ammonia test.

Thank you guys so much for all your help!


I'm so glad I found this site!

You'll want to switch to a different water conditioner. Stress Coat contains aloe vera which can coat the gills. Which conditioner you need depends on how much ammonia shows up in your tap water,

Dataguru, are you saying that you don't recommend using Aqua Pharm's Stress Coat?

I don't think adding plant sap to the water the fish breath is a good thing.

What do you recommend for water treatment? I have a 20gal. tank and change 3 gallons of it every few days. I vacuum out the water(along with the poop and food debris) with a suction device. I use tap water that has been sitting in three separate gallon jugs for the last few days. I would think that the water has been dechlorinated by then but to be safe, I still use the stress coat.
By the way, if a fish is injured, do you recommend the stress coat then?
Thank you in advance Dataguru!

So can you check and see if your city uses chloramine or chlorine?
Does your tap water have any ammonia in it?

If they use chloramine then I'd go with a water conditioner with sodium hydroxymethanesulfonate in it, cuz it detoxes chlorine, cleaves chloramine into chlorine and ammonia and detoxes the ammonia. It it's just chlorine, I'd use something with Sodium Thiosulfate in it. There are some really good threads on water conditioners bookmarked here.

Nope, I wouldn't use Stresscoat if a fish were injured. I'd make sure the water was pristine.

I'm in the less is better camp and don't like to add anything to the water that isn't absolutely necessary. I kinda think fish are quite capable of managing their own slime coat.

I'm using prime at the moment cuz it's really concentrated and my tap water has about 2.5ppm chloramine and ammonia in it. I'd really like to find a conditioner that contains sodium hydroxymethanesulfonate and something to bind heavy metals and nothing else. No luck on that so far, cuz almost everyone puts extra stuff in their water conditioners.

Good idea, I checked my tap water and it has a pH of 7.0 & zero ammonia. I don't know about the chlorine but I assume all tap water has chlorine in it. I let the water sit in the jug for at least 48 hours. This should naturally dechlorinate the water no? I don't know about chloramine. I guess I need to find out. Will letting the water sit for 48 hours get rid of chloramine?

It's supposed to work for chlorine, but not chloramine. See the link I posed in #11 above.

Have you checked your KH? pH of 7 out of the tap makes me wonder if it's high enough.

I don't have the stuff to check the KH. Do you recommend a certain test kit? I am thinking that my KH is Ok as my pH is always at 7.0 & my nitrate is at "zero". What is a "normal" pH reading of a tap water? Shouldn't it be 7.0 as that is neutral? Regardless I want to be able to test my KH & gH. How do I also check for chloramine. Do I need to call my H2O company?
Sorry for asking so many questions Dataguru!

I personally buy Sera kit, initially i was buying individual test kits, but i have found if you can buy a full kit, with all tests in, here in the uk for example, ammonia is £6.99, nitrite is £6.99. nitrate is £9.99 and ph is £5.99, what i initially bought, wereas £40 buys you loads more in a handy case.. has about 9 tests plus other bits and bobs..

I'm using the tetra KH test.

There a range of pH that's fine for goldies. When I see pH that's neutral (7) or lower I worry cuz when the bacteria in your tank convert ammonia to nitrAte, they release acids. The larger the bioload, the faster that happens. If there's not enough carbonates (KH) in your water, pH can get acidic over time.

Your city should publish an annual qater quality report that should have lots of info.

I have the Aqua Pharm's Test kit that tests pH, Amm, Nitri, & Nitra. What other tests besides the KH do I need to do? I would like to be able to do all the necessary tests as I don't want anything bad to happen to my 2 goldies as I have become very attached to them.
How do I get my hands on the 1/4 ly reports? Can I get it on-line?

I found our water quality report online. They also mail it out annually. Check out your city government website.

A GH test wouldn't hurt, but GH generally doesn't change over time. You could get your pet store to run that one for you.

Thank you so much. I will go buy the stuff to test KH & GH.