Sooo I was curious about my parents 50 gallon tank's water perimeters since I was testing my 10gallon and they were very strange. The nitrate level's is at the highest that the test strip provided which is at 200 ppm. Nitrite was alright as was pH. The newer Barbs have been in this tank for over a month now but we do have an older one that's been in there for about 3-4 years now. The fish are totally fine, no strange behavior, no disinterest in eating, no sitting on the bottom or floating at the top etc. Now this tank is not my own so I haven't been concerning myself with the care of the fish since it seemed like my parents were doing a good enough job on there own. There has never been any diseases (ich, velvet, fin rot etc) or early deaths (besides them either eating each other or in one unfortunate case of a Barb jumping out of the tank overnight) All the fish they've had were perfect..but the water conditions right now tell me that they shouldn't be? Or is it that Nitrate levels do not matter as much as I was told.
Also I just tested our tap water and apparently it does not have chlorine which I was totally convinced did and I have been using a water conditioner (AquaSafe if I need to be exact) The bottle claims to take out other heavy metals, chloramines and enhances the stress coat of my fish but should I be using it if my tap water is safe to use? Can there be something else in the tap water that can be harmful to my fish besides chlorine?
Sorry for all the questions just curious and don't want all our fish to just start dropping like flies~
Also I just tested our tap water and apparently it does not have chlorine which I was totally convinced did and I have been using a water conditioner (AquaSafe if I need to be exact) The bottle claims to take out other heavy metals, chloramines and enhances the stress coat of my fish but should I be using it if my tap water is safe to use? Can there be something else in the tap water that can be harmful to my fish besides chlorine?
Sorry for all the questions just curious and don't want all our fish to just start dropping like flies~