I'm very new to keeping fish. A couple of weeks ago I bought a 160L tank off TM and have been trying to get the water right. I have 3 goldfish in it, and vacuum the gravel regularly to keep the mess down. Ammonia levels according to the API test kit say i have 0.25 ppm present in my tank, 0.25 ppm nitrite and 0-5 ppm of nitrate (matching colours is tricky! ). pH is 7.8 ( could be higher but that is as high as the strip reads). But when I tested the water from the tap, it also reads 0.25 ppm of ammonia. I had been doing 20% water changes every day to get the ammonia levels down ... but it seems my water source is already high.
Should I just leave it like it is and wait for it to finish cycling?
The fish seem to be okay, though my Oranda has lost a few scales, and one of my comets has a red mark on it which developed when the ammonia levels were 4 ppm.
I've got the tank sitting on my kitchen counter, and since I am not there everyday, I setup a web cam so I can monitor them.