water parameters

[fuzzbaby]

here are my water parameters for painted fire red shrimp.

 

                                       ammonia- 0.25

                                       nitrite- 0

                                       nitrate- 5.0

                                       ph- 7.5

                                       tds- 127

                                       gh- 5

                                       kh- 4

                                       temp- 78

 

any sugestions would be nice.

[Aennedry]

Parameters are good to know, But how long has the tank been set up? What is the size; planted or not? Do you already have shrimp in it? You need to get the ammonia and the nitrates down. Are you using tap water, my tap actually has ammonia in it, switched to RO. If you have good water that does not have ammonia or nitrates in it I would do a partial water change and if you have it a couple drops of Prime. Then find out why you have those two in your tank. Not cycled, overfeeding, active substrate that is leaching, bad hardscape that is leaching...

=^._.^=

[fuzzbaby]

tank is 10 gal, been going for about 6 months had shrimp in it but they died had sand substrate didn't have enough so got some more at petsmart said it was black but came out gray,  3 weeks ago i changed the sub to caribsea super naturals premium aquariom substrate.

same plants are in it java fern, java moss, anubias, crypt wendtii, 2 marino balls and one fake bonsai orament looks cool haha. no shrimp yet still waiting, i use RO mixed with salty shrimp gh+kh do a 30% to 50% every 4 days along with prime nothing else. some people have said that the ammonia reading .25 is mormal with the api master test kit and the 5.0 ppm nitrate reading is not that bad under 20 ppm is good for pfr. 

will check my cory tank 20gl and my betta tank 5.5gl readings. thanks for input will keep trying to get things right before any shrimp. patience!

[Aennedry]

So after cycling did you put any livestock in the tank? Some fish to create waste to feed the benificial bacteria. You might want to cut down on the water changes a bit when you get your shrimp. They like sability and if your prams are good a 10% every week should suffice. I have the api master kit, and my tanks come out zero ammonia. Tap not quite so much. If you don't have any fish or other livestock in the tank, I would be a bit curious about where the ammonia and nitrates are coming from, because if you are using ro the water should be good. Double checking your kit with the other tanks would be good, and if you want you can check your tap as well, just to see if you get different readings, because if your tanks and tap have the same readings I would be concerned that your kit is bad. Also if you are using remineralized ro you probably don't need to use prime every water change, there shouldn't be anything to detoxify.

You might want to also consider tankmates for you neos. Bobstropicalplants has some regular and super tigers for a good price, I am thinking of getting some super tigers to add to one of my tanks, they are near as easy to take care of as neos (but not as easy as opae'ula) and will not cross with them.

=^._.^=

[fuzzbaby]

no fish, like i said had rcs but died thought it might be the gray  substrate leaching so changed out substrate. 

just did a water test on my tap  (1.0 ppm ammonia)  (80 ppm nitrate)  then tested ro water (0 ppm ammonia) ( 5.0 ppm nitrate)

i think that my ro water is at fault will try a different source  or machine or contact company about there water it is glacier water from a machine. he are a couple of pics of tank. 

 

[Brolly33]

Use your test kit on the filtered water coming from that Glacier machine. I have had terrible luck with grocery store "filter" machines water quality.

Start with your TDS meter.  Good RO should be <5.0 and great RO should be 0.0.

[fuzzbaby]

yes i did. went to another machine and ammonia and nitrate came out 0 ppm also i might be dosing to much with the salty shrimp on w/c

since there is already some in the tank. it's a good thing i have 8 water machines to choose from plus primo water at walmart. just did a w/c

will check parameters tuesday. thanks for all you input!

[Brolly33]

Do you feel like some amateur kitchen science.

 

If you were to do a 50% water change, and test tank water for ammonia before and after, does your test result go up, down, or stay the same?

When you remineralize with salty shrimp, before you put the new water into the tank, does it test positive for ammonia?

If you bought a gallon of pure distilled water, does it test positive for ammonia?

 

If incoming water has no ammonia, and your test kit is good, then it has to be in the tank already.

 

Your filter should be pulling ammonia out. If you were to accidentally kill the bacteria colony in your filter you would get a double whammy due to the dead bacteria not eating ammonia anymore, as well as their microscopic little bodies decaying. Are you dosing anything strange that might kill off your filter? Hydrogen Peroxide treatment? anti-biotics?

Your plants look nice and green, and should be pulling ammonia out for you. Ammonia can be a by-product of organic decay. Fish waste does this, but you don't have any livestock in there. I don't see any dead leaves or dead plant material in your tank picture. If you wood is rotting, it might be releasing ammonia (doubtful, but testable)

You could put your wood hard-scape into a bucket of tested RO and see if you get an ammonia spike over 1-2 days.

You could do the same bucket test with a small handfull of your substrate and your RO if you wanted to eliminate it as the source of ammonia.

 

My Hagen test kit compensates the test color of the ammonia against pH of the sample. I wonder if the API test kit is effected by pH of the sample?

 

Lots of fun variables to eliminate