my child got ahold of my test kit papers and i need to know how long after a water change can i test the water again

you can test any time after a water change but i would say give it a day for the water to mix and PH to settle, once you have had the tank set up for sometime you will know how long it will be before you need to do another change. for me it works out about 10 days before i need to do a water change but I do a regular change every 7days as i know by this time my nitrates are reaching 30pph. so i aim to keep them below this. i sometimes do a test the next day after i have done a water change if the readings was high at last test, if i find my nitrates higher than my normal 10-15pph after my first water change i do another change at this point. I test more often for nitrates but I always do a full test next day after i clean my filter. for most people about 7 days would be a good time to test as long as your not over stocked. I was once over stocked so done tests very often and was doing changes twice a wk. i am glad them days are over.)))

thanks marcus... i will test it tommarow then for some reason my ammonia had come up on me so i did a 50% water change and i want to make sure i have it knocked down

if I got any sign of ammonia i would test daily or every other day if it was very low. you done the right thing with the large change.

it was a really low amount i think my duaghter fed my oscars without my knowledge lol so i gave it a good vacuming large water change and have since kept the food up alot higher! figuire a couple of water tests to make sure it's down and keep an eye on it

BentBarrel wrote:

that is the normal problem with the kids... they really love feeding
the fishes even if not needed. recently, my 5 year old grand daughter
got all my fresh frozen shrimp in the ref and pour all of them in the
tank. its good she split them into two tanks.... at least minimal
effect. when i got home, all my oscars were bloated for too much food.

PAUL wrote:


lol tell me about it!!!! tested the water this morning and everything is in order
Ammonia 0
nitrites 0
nitrates 20
ph 7.6
high range ph 7.4

then you are on the right track.... we can not help but to
always be on the alert. kids are kids and we can not change that.
what they think is good and could please us may means disaster on
our part...