Water parameters

[Owb51]

Can someone tell me how to fix my water parameters?  The picture I have included has my test strip on the left of the bottle to compare colors. Just in case you can’t read the conditions they are as follows; nitrate, nitrite, chlorine, hardness, alkalinity, and carbonate. 
the nitrates are a little high, nitrite is 0, carbonate is a little high, and ph is high I think. I’m not totally sure I’m reading this right. Advice would be much appreciated. 
My tank is 55gallons. I have 2 angels, 2 blue acara’s, 9 barbs, 2 khouli loaches ( I’m sure I spelled that wrong lol), 3 pleco’s, 2 German rams,  2 chocolate gourami’s, 2 killifish, and 3 powder blue gourami’s.  
the tank is heavily planted. 
one of my rams and killifish seem to be missing, but I am hoping they are hiding somewhere in the plants. I just set up a small tank for the chocolate gourami’s, killifish and rams. As soon as it cycles out, I am moving them to it. 

[Guppysnail]

Wait until it is fully cycled as all those will change once it’s cycled.  Then do nothing.

Constantly chasing numbers is not good for fish unless it’s a radical condition than needs immediate attention.  Long term stability is the best thing for fish. 

[Owb51]

The tank has been up for months. Every time I check, the parameters it’s the same. I’m assuming it’s okay then?

[nabokovfan87]

Welcome @Owb51 and I think there's just a bit of confusion.  Basically, there is a range of acceptable values.  The basic question is understanding what your test is saying and then understanding if those values are acceptable for the tank and the livestock in the tank.

Nitrate level might be high, but this can be resolved with doing a water change.  If the value is ~50 then you would expect the plants to use up some of that nitrate as food.  If that value climbs highly, then you would be looking at overstocking issues or simply not changing enough water often enough due to the bioload on the tank.

Your nitrite and ammonia should be zero, always.  If you see these values increase, there are ranges that are tolerable, but the main point would be to do a water change once a day to keep those risks under control.

GH. KH. PH. are values that will be stabilized over time.  Plants use GH as food and so that value will slowly deteriorate over time.  KH and PH are related and the co-op has a great article on how they work. 

https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/ph-gh-kh

Please take a look and let us know if you have further questions.

[Owb51]

Thank you so much for this very helpful info. I get overwhelmed when searching for answers online.