water tests.

sparkee · Post by **sparkee** » Wed May 11, 2005 3:43 pm

i know that the ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels should be 0ppm, but what should the other water perimeters be e.g. kh. gh.

Des · Post by **Des** » Wed May 11, 2005 7:24 pm

Sparkee,
Ammonia and Nitrite have to be zero.
You will not normally get a zero nitrate level unless you have a heavilly planted tank removing all the nitrates. Nitrate has to be as low as possible, depends on what type of water you are using, if tap water than normally will contain quite a high level. I would say that anything under 50 is OK but the lower the better.The nitrate level will increase as time goes on due to the nitrificatin process in the tank, and will have to be diluted by water changes.
Regarding KH and Gh , there are no hard and fast rules . Zebras will live in hard, medium or soft water but better breeding results will result from using soft water, when they are ready to breed.
Soft water has a tendency to "ph crash" so one has to be careful and monitor constantly.
Regards,
Des.

sparkee · Post by **sparkee** » Wed May 11, 2005 7:30 pm

im using r.o water with r.o. right. and the ph is 6.8, is it safe to use a ph buffer like proper ph. or is there a better way of maintaining it?

Des · Post by **Des** » Sat May 14, 2005 4:49 pm

Hi Sparkee,

Sorry for the late reply.
I am not familiar with "proper ph" so cannot answer your question, but after monitoring , if you find that your kh and ph are dropping you will need to add some type of buffer, or increased water changes.

Regards,
Des.