Ammonia,nitrite,nitrate

[fishlover0815]

ammonia,nitrite,and nitrate are high for my fish tank, is it normal? Ammonia is 1ppm, nitrite 1 ppm, and nitrate is super high!

 

[lmforbis]

That indicates the tank is not cycled. It means you don't have enough bacteria to break down the waste. If you have fish a very large, immediate water change is in order to bring those levels down.
If you are still cycling your tank then you need to keep waiting until the ammonia and nitrite are zero then do a water change to bring the ammonia down.

 

[fishlover0815]

That indicates the tank is not cycled. It means you don't have enough bacteria to break down the waste. If you have fish a very large, immediate water change is in order to bring those levels down.
If you are still cycling your tank then you need to keep waiting until the ammonia and nitrite are zero then do a water change to bring the ammonia down.

So I wait? And how do I bring up the bacteria? I guess I put too much food in there...
But why nitrate is so high? And I don't get it... If ammonia is zero, why I have to bring ammonia down by doing water change?(btw the ammonia is 0.50ppm now)

 

[lmforbis]

You said ammonia was 1 ppm. Any ammonia is toxic to fish. It burns their gills and will kill them. If you have fish in your tank and any ammonia you must reduce the ammonia to zero. There is a product called Prime made by Seachem that will help detoxify ammonia. Only use this if you have fish.
The bacteria load will catch up to the amount of waste but it takes time.
The process involves waste turning to ammonia then one kind of bacteria breaks down the ammonia to nitrite then another breaks nitrite down into nitrate. There is an other bacteria that breaks down nitrate into nitrogen gas but that takes a while to happen. Nitrate is usually reduced by water changes.