Hardness help and Ammonia

[Bortass]

Hi, I've been bad and never tested my FW tank that's been running in it's current form for over 4 years.

So I did some testing today and am curious about the results. It's 130 gallon tank BTW.

My GH was 4 degrees but KH was 5 degrees. Is this possible? I thought KH was a subset of GH. I think i did something wrong but would like confirmation.

My PH was 7.6
NO2 was 0
NH4 was .25 PPM and NH3 .005 PPM

Ammonia is higher then I'd like. I don't think it's super critical but not good. looking for confirmation of that.

Thanks for any insight.

 

[Rbishop]

First of all...

What kind of a test kit are you using?

What are the same readings on your tap water?

What is your substrate? Planted?

And what kind of fish are you keeping?

How much and how often are your water changes?

 

[Bortass]

Redsea liquid test kits.

I will test my tap water, on a well, and get those results.

Substrate is sand. It's been in the tank for over 8 months. I have been slowly removing it. It used to be 3+ inches deep but i kept have problem with hydrogen sulfide. I'm down to under an inch now i think. The last sand removal was maybe a gallon of sand, all from the same corner of the tank, and it was 2 weeks ago.

No real plants until yesterday. I added some java fern and moss. Along with 1 other plant. I do have a short dark green bushy type algae growing on driftwood and some of the fake plants.

Inhabitants: 1 common Pleco at least 12 inches long, 3 clown fish, 1 cory, 1 dwarf gourami, 1 betta, 1 Angel fish body is about 2.5 inches tall, so it's big to me, about 20 danios, tetras, and barbs.
No new fish have been added in over two months. The last ones added were the betta and 2 tetras from a tank that was taken down when we remodelled the living room. The last prior addition before that was at least 12 months ago.

I do have an explosion of snails though. there were some in the tank years ago from pond plants. They dissapeared but have returned. I think something was keeping their population down. Something changed in the tank conditions a number of months ago and now they are all over the place.

Water changes have been sporadic until recently. The tank was neglected and WC were every 6 - 8 weeks. I've been doing them more frequently lately. AT least every couple weeks for the last couple months, though I have done 20% each of the last two weeks. I'll be doing another 20% or so this weekend.

 

[Bortass]

Reading from the tap. I took the water from where I've been filling that tank from. It's before the expansion tank, so it's pretty much straight from the well. The water temp is about 58 degrees F and i did not aerate it or anything else.:
PH is about 8.4
CO2 is maybe 2 PPM. probably less. This makes sense with the high PH.
NO2 is about .05 ppm. Hard to tell since 0 and .05 are pretty close in color with this kit.
NH3 and 4 are both 0

Here's how that water get's added to the tank. I have 1/4 hose that feeds the RO unit I use for my SW tanks. I just disconnect it from the RO unit and feed it straight into the tank. So it'll take maybe 20 minutes to refil a 20% WC. I can always not open the faucet as much and refill even slower. I currently don't have a good way to store water to get it to room temp and to aerate before using it right now. It'd fail the wife test.

 

[Rbishop]

I worry about the difference on your tap pH and tank pH.

For me, the lower tank pH signifies some level of OTS setting in. It would be interesting to know what your tap and tank GH/KH are.

I would continue the small (10-15%) water changes, frequently, every 2 days until your tank and tap matched on pH.

It would be best to take the tap pH after it had set out for at least 24 hrs, in a shallow dish.

 

[leocom2000]

I currently don't have a good way to store water to get it to room temp and to aerate before using it right now. It'd fail the wife test.

:lol2:

 

[Bortass]

I worry about the difference on your tap pH and tank pH.

For me, the lower tank pH signifies some level of OTS setting in. It would be interesting to know what your tap and tank GH/KH are.

I would continue the small (10-15%) water changes, frequently, every 2 days until your tank and tap matched on pH.

It would be best to take the tap pH after it had set out for at least 24 hrs, in a shallow dish.

So tap GH was 2 degrees and KH was 5 degrees. The tank was GH 4 degrees and KH 5 degrees.

I can kinda explain this though. The tank is in the basement and it's heated. the tank will lose about an inch of water in a week to evaporation. It does have a glass lid. My open top SW tank will lose about 1.5 gallons a day or so and is also in the basement, just further from the heater.

So the TDS build up as the water evaporates. I lower the water to the 20% mark or so and refill. So I'm not really removing 20% of the water. The same would happen with my SW tank if i didn't replace evaporation with RO. I have a TDS meter on my RO unit and it says the input water is about 83 PPM. So I'm just slowly building up TDS. I probably should replace my evap. losses with RO. I let my RO water sit in a tub, it's an out of sight location so the temp will be a bit better.

Thanks for mentioning old tank syndrome. I will search it to see what i should do. I've heard the term but that's it.

I will let some water sit over night and retest the PH as well.

 

[Bortass]

FWIW, i just did a nitrate, NO3, test using a seachem kit I have. It reads about 2 mg/L.

So I have ammonia, a little nitrate, and no nitrite. Hmmm, I'm sure this means something. Time to read on cycles. Make sure what I remember is right. Amm ->nitrite -> nitrate.

 

[Bortass]

Ok good news. I let the water sit for 24 hours and the PH was 7.6 just like the tank. Is it a problem if i add the water directly to the tank, as long as I don't do massive water changes?

There's a fair amount of particulate matter in the water column as well. I've added an additional powerhead with a filter to pull some of it out. I'm on my second filter. The first one clogged within 2 days. So I am slowly reducing the amount of matter in the tank.

I also added some Amquel yesterday to reduce the impact of the ammonia i saw in my test.