Water parameters

[storm]

Firstly, thank you to everyone that has been giving me support this week with my axie and his gills that are in a terrible state and the broken leg story.

Pse advise if my water is okay yet?:
PH = 7.2 - 7.6
KH = 3 - 6
GH = 6
NO2 = 1
NO3 = 10 - 25 (dropped slightly is this good?)
Sorry but the little pamphlet that came in the test kit was thrown away and I hated science as a kid so never really understood the whole NO2/NO3 relationship so to speak.

If someone can please tell me what each of the above should be at and if I need to 'fix' anything in a hurry. I have done 30% water changes daily for the past 5 days.
Good news is that I have got my Axie to eat a little bit every day which I am delighted about!

Look forward to some Scientific advise in laymans terms please.

Many thanks

 

[tyl3r]

Hi Storm. I'll try:

Your pH is perfect. Your KH and GH are fine. Provided you don't start putting anything into your water (magic fixes from the pet shop etc) and keep using the same source for your water then these should remain pretty constant so you can save money by only checking these occasionally (like once per quarter).

It's the NH3, NO2 and NO3 that you're interested from a tank "cycling" point of view.

In simplest terms, your axy's urine contains NH3. This is harmful to the axy. Over time the concentration of NH3 would increase to the point of being fatal. So, by doing regular partial water changes you can keep this concentration down to acceptable levels.

However, nature has its own way of dealing with this problem and in time, bacteria will build up in the tank and filter which will process the NH3 and produce NO2. This is also harmful to your axy but not as harmful as NH3. Again, this level is kept to an acceptable level by doing regular partial water changes. Eventually another set of bacteria builds up in the tank and filter which will process the NO2 into NO3. NO3 is the least harmful to your axy.

So, looking at your figures (you don't have NH3 figures here) it seems that you've got some bacteria which are converting the NH3 to NO2 (since you have an NO2 reading) and also some bacteria that are converting NO2 to NO3 (since you have an NO3 reading).

All you need to do is keep doing the regular partial water changes (20% daily is probably ok now) until the NH3 and NO2 figures drop to 0. Once they have dropped to 0 you can reduce the frequency of the partial water change to, perhaps, weekly. You will find that your NO3 reading climbs but this is normal and in fact is proving that your

NH3 --> NO2 --> NO3

"cycle" is working.

In short: You've got no emergencies to handle. Just keep doing the regular partial water changes until the NO2 goes to zero. It does seem like forever but it will happen eventually!

 

[storm]

Got it - understood - Thank you SO much!