Current ammonia/nitrate/nitrate/pH levels. Are these right?

[itswoodie]

I just finished doing some water tests on my 20 gal freshwater. I'm about 2-3 weeks into the cycling process, and don't really know what kind of levels I should be expecting.

Here's what I got. It's been about 30ish hours since my last 50% water change.


Nitrite: 5.0
Nitrate: 10-15
pH: 7.0
Ammonia: .15


I kinda expected the ammonia to be a bit higher. If this is indeed too low, could it be due to thorough gravel vacuuming? I was told once not to vacuum too much or else there wont be any waste to help build up ammonia levels. I kinda get carried away when I vaccuum, so should I cut down a bit?

How do the other numbers look?

Any and all help is (as always) greatly appreciated. :bowing:

Warm Regards,
itswoodie

 

[TrickyD119]

Maybe I can help you out a little bit until someone a little more knowledgeable comes along, but am I right in assuming this is the tank you are fishy cycling right?

Your nitrates are definitely in the safe zone, whether or not they could be any better depends on your water quality from the tap.

If you are in fact fishy cycling then I wouldn't think you'd want to attempt to promote anymore ammonia. That would be very harmful to your fish. You are about as safe as you can be right now in regards to ammonia as far as a fishy cycle goes though. I believe it is around 1ppm you want to make sure you stay under.

Your nitrites are too high for a fishy cycle and you’ll want to continue with daily 50% water changes to get that number down below 0.5 if at all possible.

I believe it is correct that you don’t really want to disturb the substrate or your filter media during the cycle as that is where the bacteria you need is colonizing.

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If I’m completely mistaken and you are doing a fishless cycle, then you need to be adding a pure ammonia source to bring your ammonia levels up to continue promoting the beneficial bacteria growth. You would continue to do so until your daily tests were yielding 0 ammonia and 0 nitrites after adding enough ammonia to get a reading of 5ppm 24 hours earlier.

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Just trying to help you out for now, but I am new myself so if I’m wrong about anything I certainly would hope someone will quickly correct me.

 

[pbecot01]

If there's fish in the tank you want to take it nice and easy... vaccum any waste that there is, the little bit of ammonia that the fish produce will be enough for the bacteria to multiply. And the experts say that you cannot interrupt the bacteria by vaccuming the gravel.

 

[RTR]

TKOS covered it all, but I want to repeat the idea that if fish are present the nitrite need to come down quickly as the fish are in danger.

 

[FisheyLisa]

the less ammonia the better. Small water changes and water conditioner that binds ammonia too would help. Ammonia has negative effects and shortens the life of your fish.
It damages their gills.

Fresh water is always good.

Lisa