Questions from an aquarium newbie

Hello All. My name is George. I hope to make this forum community my center of information.

This will be a long read, but I want to make sure that I cover all the information that I know about my water conditions and tank.

I recently purchased a 20 Gallon fish tank with all the fixings. I cleaned the decorations, gravel, heater, everything with water before inserting them into the fish tank and filling the fish tank with water. I let the tank run without fish for about two days (recommend amount of time) and then I bought fish. First, I purchased 1 Silver Molly, 1 Red-Wag Platy, and 1 24K Gold Molly. I had them in the tank for about a week, then I bought 3 Cory Catfish and 5 Neon Tetras. I know that the addition of the fish was a bit quick, but the fish were a gift for my daughters and I wanted them to be able to see the fish swimming around. I also purchased a piece of driftwood from my LFS to give the tank an authentic look.

Anyhow, here are some of the readings that I get from a Mardel Master Test Kit

Nitrate 10
Nitrite 0.5
Hardiness 120
Alkalinity 180
pH 7.8
Ammonia 0.5

I promise I'll get to the questions ASAP, I just want you guys to know what I'm working with

I know that my pH can be labeled as a bit high (currently putting pH-Down to help with that and once I get it to about 7.2 or so I'm going to put a Neutral Regulator to keep the pH at 7.0) and I also know that my ammonia is above 0, which is bad (I'm putting AmQuel+ to help with the Nitrate, Nitrite, and Ammonia levels). It was recommended by my LFS that I should put AmQuel+ and pH-Down three times in the next three days to try to help with those levels and I'm currently on day two of doing this procedure. I have also treated the water with Water Conditioner from Tetra and with Water Treatment from Tetra. The water treatment is given every week and the water conditioner is given when I add a fish or when I do a 15% water change every week.


Okay, on to the questions, finally, thanks for hanging around...

1. My ammonia levels aren't really changing at all with the AmQuel+, should I be worried about this, or is it that my aquarium just has to cycle? Is there anything that I can do to fix this ammonia problem? I forgot to mention that I did put some Zeolite Crystals into the BioBag for my Whisper 40 Power filter to help with the Ammonia issue.

2. Nitrate and Nitrite levels are also high and the AmQuel+ isn't lowering this either. Anything else that you guys can think of that can help with this problem? I know the levels aren't bad, but from what I hear they should always be minimal.

3. I use to have 6 Neon Tetra's, but one got a fungus on it's dorsal side so I donated it back to the fish store and they put it in a sick tank (at least that is what they told me). Since the fish isn't in the aquarium anymore, should I be worried about treating the tank with some sort of "Fungus Clear" to make sure none of the fish catch this fungus?

4. I am currently using the Mardel Master Test Kit to test my water in the tank. It is kind of difficult to differentiate between the different Hues in those tests. Any recommendations as to which test may be easier to read than Mardels or if there is a better test out there for measuring water quality?

I never knew that having a fish tank would be so much work, but I am glad my girls love it, and am willing to work hard to gain more and more knowledge on this topic. Thank you in advance for any responses given.

--George

Would you recommend a 25% water change instead weekly, or just more 10% water changes within the week?

rbishop said:

If ammonia or nitrite indicate.25 or greater do a water change. 20-30% minimum.

Stop all those chem adds and pH adjusts. Use Prime.

Click to expand...

What's Prime?

Just thought about one more question:

Should I use drinking water or tap water? I started the tank with tap, but I did a 50% water change early to replace a lot of the tap water with Arrowhead Mountain Spring Water and have kept using drinking water on all my water changes.

The TetraAqua AquaSafe Water Conditioner that I'm using has a stress coat additive and Bio-Extract that makes the water "clear". I think that does the same job as the Prime, but once I'm done with that bottle, I'm going to definitely buy that Prime by Seachem.

Also, I always hear people talk about the tank "cycling". How do you know that it's done cycling?

Another question, is there any way of knowing how many inches of water equal to one gallon of water? I have a standard 20 gallon tank.

Should I remove all the decorations *minus the plants as those can be a hassle to place again* when I do a syphoning of the gravel? Or should I even remove the plants?