Hello,

I have been getting more into my fishkeeping since coming on here and learning more about it, and then I got more into tropical fish and have learned more about them. Oh and bought a 5ft tank that I wasn't planning on!!

I started testing my own water instead of going to the lfs around mid December and since then I have been very good and wrote everything down for all my tanks and doing tests before every water change.

My readings are consistently good, although my biggest tank is showing higher ph and a trace of amonia today.

And so, I am now interested that I am doing all the tests that I should be doing. I do ph, amonia, nitrIte and sometimes oxygen. Should I be testing nitrAte? I was going to buy a test kit but they seem fairly expensive when there's so many other things I would like to buy in my lfs!! I have never had any nitrIte so I always thought there was no need. Am I wrong?

What do you test and how often?

Thanks

I generally run a full battery of tests on all tanks once a week on Saturday morning. Ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH. I test the KH once a month.

If a tank is solidly cycled and has had absolutely no changes or concerns, I sometimes skip the ammonia and nitrite. But I never skip the nitrate. That is my indicator that a tank needs attention. It would be a nice world if I could change my tanks on an evenly spaced time frame. But some have more and some have less fish in them, some have "floater" potentials, etc. so I run changes by nitrate levels. The triage of nitrate determines the order of the changes. Every tank gets a 33% change at least once of a week, but the majority go 4-5 days. My "floater" tank gets it every 3 days. My little tank and my tanks with only one fish go 6-7 days.

Nitrate is very important to me. JMO

But is that because you don't test for Amonia and NirtIte that often and so you need an indicator of those?

I test amonia and nitrIte weekly, and if they are fine wouldn't the nirtAtes be fine as well?

Not trying to argue with you, just trying to get my head around it.

Me, x

I generally do my tests weekely before a water change and I test:

pH (and once a month I check the pH of the water from the faucet).
Amonia
Nitrite
Nitrate
Hardness/Kh

My big 3 are Amonia, Nitrite and Nitrate since they are the ones that have the capability of fluctuating wildly and can easily harm the fish. (Yes, I know the others can also.)

I also keep records of the numbers so I can track the graphically -and- check other factors and their relative effects. Since I have plive plants in my aquarium, I experiment with lighting times and planting densities to determine positive or negative effects on the tanks.

That's my 2 cents.

Cheese--the way I understand it is this--when a tank is cycling, the first bacteria that takes care of the ammonia forms nitrItes, which is still harmful but not as bad as ammonia. The second type of bacteria takes in the nitrItes and gives off nitrAtes. NitrAtes aren't nearly as dangerous as ammonia or nitrItes, but once the tank is fully cycled, your ammonia and nitrIte readings SHOULD always be low; it is the nitrAtes that will build up. So testing your nitrates is very important, and is a good indicator of how often you need to do your water changes.
Hope this helps!

I do

Ammonia
nitrite
at LEAST once a week, often every 3 days (paranoid!!)
pH every once in awhile, every two weeks maybe?

Nitrates....I HATE the nitrate tester I have. It's a Hagan one, and there is something solid in the solution bottle in every test kit I've gotten of NItrates and it makes it VERY hard for me to get the 3 drops out of solution #3.
VERY HARD. So I've taken to slacking off on them.

My nitrates have been 0 or under 5 for the last month or two depending on which tank that I test, so I am not too worried about it.

Jessica