advice needed about my water readings

[tessr]

I've recently bought a new api freshwater master test kit and i am a bit unsure about the readings i'm getting which are
ph - 7.6
high ph - 7.4
ammonia - 0.25ppm my tap water is also reading 0.25ppm
nitrite - 0.0ppm
nitrate - 5.00pm

my tank is about 30g with 7 gouramis and 8 guppies and 10 tetras and 1 sucker loach

Is my ammonia high because of the tap water readings or am i overstocked? most of my fish were put in from my 15g except the gouramis and guppies also what is the differance between the ph and high ph readings? all the readings have been the same since i started putting the fish in the tank after cycling it, any advice would be greatly appreciated

[OldMan47]

I'm a little surprised at the ammonia reading in a cycled tank. I have 1 ppm ammonia in my tap water but my tanks are all at zero. The only time they show any ammonia is right after a water change and it is again undetectable after only a few hours. To get .25 from .25 tap you would need to do a 100% water change and then measure right away. A smaller water change should never get the ammonia that high because it would be diluted by the old water that had none. You may want to re-read the instructions for using the test kit. There may be something in your technique that is throwing off your results. The bioload you have should not give you a perpetual ammonia reading from overloading the bacteria if the tank is really cycled.

[Fishy_Fun]

well if the tap reads .25 then that would make your tank water .25 also until your bacteria takes care of it.as for stocking it looks overstocked to me 7 gouramis in a 30 is quite a few in my eyes.all the others look fine though.

[jpappy789]

I agree with the stocking comment above^

A cycled tank still should have 0 ammonia regardless of the tap reading like OldMan said. I would re-test, post the results, and go from there if need be.

[Coler]

well if you did a water change and tested shortly after that would explain the .25 ammonia.

you need to be, if you are not already, using a conditioner which will take out the ammonia - Seachem Prime is excellent for this.

7 gourami is a whole lot of gourami for the tank - probably will lead to problems with aggression.

[jm1212]

it sounds like a combination fo the two IMO. you are going to need to take some of the fish out of the tank.

[tessr]

Thanks for the advice i do use tetra aquasafe for the tap water when doing my water changes.

The gouramis i have are 4 female dwarf and 1 male, 2 pearl and 1 i was asked to rehome which looks like a thick lipped (but i'm not totally sure on that one) i did ask at the Lfs when i bought them and was told they would be fine, so far they seem really happy with no signs of any aggression, do you think i should move some into my old tank? which i still have but would need to cycle as its nolonger running.

[Rbishop]

Yes split them up....

[tessr]

hi just thought i'd update on my readings as i've done a normal water change and my ammonia levels have finally read 0.0ppm again, i'm gonna retest it in a couple of days just to check it stays down, but i've now noticed my ph has risen to 7.6 with a high ph of 7.8, is this normal after a water change? and what is the differnce between the 2 readings? as the information book i have dosn't explain this at all

[ct-death]

I would like to echo the above sentaments concerning the stocking...

However, as for the pH, you have 2 (a High and Low). The Low is maxed at 7.6 I belive and High starts at 7.6 (I could be slightly off here, but explanation holds). Thus, if you measure at the limits of the Low (ie. 7.6) this simply tells you that you are either at 7.6 or higher. The High pH kit will take you above this reading (in your case 7.8) which is the accurate reading.

Make sense?

[OldMan47]

Your pH is fine as long as it doesn't move around very much. I'm glad to hear that your ammonia is under control now.

[tessr]

Thanks for the explination it at last makes more sense my usual ph readings are 7.6 with high ph of 7.4 think the last readings were high because i'd done a water change about 3 hours before, which i'm thinking means the actual ph is around 7.5! please correct me if i'm wrong, i've only used the test strips before and decided i needed to get a proper test kit as its a much bigger tank than my old one, which i have started to cycle so i can move some of the gouramis in there, i'm not sure which ones to move,although i was thinking of leaving the pearls as they are and move all the dwarf gouramis which would be 1 male and 3 females do you think this would work better? also what would be the maximum stocking level for a 30g (125 litre) tank as i've read a lot of different things on how to work out the stocking level which don't seem to be very accurate, as i don't want to over stock my tanks in the future.
many thanks for the advice

[tessr]

I forgot to say i've retested my ammonia levels today and they've stayed down at 0.0 now for the last few days!!

[RobertW]

glad to hear it... whats goin on with the gouramis?

[gmh]

I get exactly the same readings from my high and low PH tests. They disagree by a couple of points. I just split the difference and call it 7.5.