HELP. What levels should my freshwater tank have? (pH, Nitrate, nitrite, ammonia)?

ammonia should be 0, anything other than 0 is toxic. do a 15%-20% every other day until that reading is down to 0.

with a knifefish (is it Xenomystus nigri?) and a bichir (scientific name?), if your tank is anyless than 75-100 US gallons, you're overstocked, if not now, you will soon be, and your tiger barbs i presume are sacrificial to the knifefish and bichir?

If you have 4 goldies I'm assuming you have an adequate tank size, of at least 50+ gallons as goldfish require 10-15 gallons per fish. I also recommend a filter that handles double the capacity of your tank. I have four goldies in a 55 gallon with a 110 gallon rated filter. Without an adequate tank and filtration system you are setting yourself up for ill and dying fish. Is your tank cycled? A cycling tank should be tested every other day. A cycled tank can be tested once a week. All fish owners should have a drop test kit on hand for pH, ammonia, nitrites, nitrates and hardness/softness. Goldfish require cooler water of 60-75 F. They require alkaline water, which is the pH and since a 7.0 is neutral they require a pH of 7.2-7.8. You'll need to make sure you get a kit with a 'high range' pH test for this. The ammonia needs to be 0 ppm, nitrites 0 ppm and nitrates less than 20 ppm. If any of these are off it can cause stress, illness and even death. The only way to correct water quality issues is with water changes...50% emergency changes in extreme cases with 20-25% daily or every other day until the problem is corrected. You can also use Kordon's AmQuel Plus to detoxify any ammonia or nitrites in the water so that the fish do not get ill but use this with caution in a cycling tank because you will be neutralizing it and not allowing the nitrogen cycle to complete. Good luck.

In a cycled tank, the water parameters should be ammonia and nitrites 0 ppm, and nitrates you want to keep under 20 ppm.

Is your tank newly set up, or within the last few months? If so, then it's still going through the cycle process. See first article on the link:

http://freshaquarium.about.com/od/startupcycle/Ste...

If it hasn't been set up recently, then I'd say it may be a combination of being overstocked(what's the tank size?) and/or not enough water changes being performed. For a cycled tank that isn't overstocked, 25% water changes done weekly along with a gravel vacuum should be done.

With your levels, you need to start doing daily water changes of about 20% until the tank finishes cycling, or those levels get into check.

And no, those levels aren't safe. On that link above, also read the ones on ammonia and nitrite poisoning to see what the fish go through when those are present in a tank. They're toxic at any amounts, there's no "safe" levels of ammonia or nitrites, only 0.

Your tank is new and the filters are not cycled yet.

When you got your water tested it was from an empty tank, and they basically tested your tap water, and of course that was safe for fish.

Once you added fish they started excreting ammonia into the water, but you have no working biofilter to process the waste.

What you need to do now is daily partial water changes to keep the ammonia and nitrite readings down below 1. That should keep your fish alive for the next couple of weeks, by which time the filter will have started to cycle. When you see the nitrAte level start to rise and the ammonia and nitrite levels fall to zero, then you can relax and go back to weekly water changes.

Have a read of this page, it explains what is happening.

http://www.fishlore.com/NitrogenCycle.htm

Ian

The tank is still cycling, I take it because you have zero NITRATE you added the fish before cycling the tank.

This is a cruel way to go about it, it's better doing it fish less, but never mind it;s done now.

The ammonia and nitrite should be 0 anything higher is dangerous. What will happen is the ammonia and nitrite will spike and begin to fall back to zero. Then nitrate will build up. Under 20ppm nitrate is fine.

Once you have ammonia and nitrite on 0ppm and nitrates on 20ppm, you'll have to carry out weekly water changes of about 20% to keep the right balence.

I don't know about the other fish, but the tigers like a PH of arround 6-7.5 and soft to medium water.

god I hate petsmart. they may have effectively killed your fish. here are the problems.

1) ammonia should be ZERO at all times.

2) nitrite should also be ZERO at all times.

3) nitrate should be as close to zero as possible

4) most fish are not particularly sensitive to pH, so that is fine.

In conclusion, I HATE PETSMART! they care more about money than fish.

Is it a pretty new tank. If so I would say its just part of the tanks cycling process.