confussed about test results

H

Heidyth

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May 12, 2003
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I did the water test and am very confussed about the Hardness and alkalinity. I bought these mardel test strips 5 in 1.

I already had the ammonia kit.

Here are my numbers. Please let me know if anything is out of safe range.

30gal Goldfish tank
July 23, 2003 02:15 am
Nitrate 20ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
Hardness 120ppm
alkalinity 80 ppm
Ph 7.6
Ammonia 0ppm
 
What kind of hardness is that? GH and KH are usually given in small increments, not in the 100's. The test kit should give you a conversion from ppm to a % scale. (I think that's the difference--could be wrong!)

Otherwise, nothing looks awry. The nitrates would be high enough for me to be doing a water change, but I seldom have much in the way of nitrates since all my tanks are planted.
 
I have low nitrates (under 10 ppm) and don't have a planted tank but 20 ppm is still something some aquarists would kill for! I think Linda is safe in that department. I agree, the hardness reading is off...
 
I believe you divide by 17.9 to go from ppm to degrees. This would be 6.7 degrees, if my info is correct, which is in a perfectly "safe" range.
 
I'm with Scott on this one about the hardness. I would be overjoyed to get nitrAtes of 20, I can hardly keep mine below 30 although ammonia is less than 0.1 and nitrIte as much as 0.25 with planted tank.

However I have 3 large snails in this tank and let wild snails breedfreely to feed to my crabs and snail are pretty filthy so that might explain higher nitrAtes, but there you go!

Each fish-keeper has different tank settings and local water and stock so it keeps it interesting!
 
Remember, gang, snails, like flatworms and other detritus feeders, don't create "filth" --they are turning a good portion of what they eat into Snail and Snailshell, along with tissue repairs and general metabolism. What they excrete is just a small percentage of what they've taken in.

So, snails are part of the biofiltration, in a sense. You finally "export" all that detritus-turned-temporarily-into-Snail when you discard the snail.
 
aquariumfishguy

No ... this particular tank is some months old and the encumbents are about 4 months in tank so unlikely.

However the fish, frogs and snails are real happy and some of the breed at times.

I have given up worrying on this and take a different attitude then totally scientific when interpreting the water results.

Even Red Claw Crabs are happy!



wetmanNY

Not 100% in agreement there - put large snails into a tank with white gravels and see how dirty they become!! Agreed though that they scavenge more than they excrete but the excretions are surely much more toxic than that which they scavenge in a given time period so making them "filthy"
 
Everyone thanks for the replies. Scott I will keep that conversion in mind thanks. The booklet that came with the kit didn't tell me much. I went looking on the different profiles and ranges web sites for dif fish. they were all in dh. Thanks to wetman I read about ppm on his site and saw mine was ok. It was very confussing.
 
Originally posted by wetmanNY
So, snails are part of the biofiltration, in a sense. You finally "export" all that detritus-turned-temporarily-into-Snail when you discard the snail.
Click to expand...

is there any environmental concern when I toss a stray MTS into the yard? If It got into the storm drain, would it grow and breed and become a plague?
 
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