NewToFish1989
Aquarium Advice Activist
- Joined
- Sep 30, 2013
- Messages
- 112
So happy right now. Been fighting 40ppm nitrates for last few months, no matter how many times I did a water change, did a gravel vacuums, my nitrates remained at 40PPM and lost a few of the less hardier fish 
So yesterday I started to suspect my substrate as I was using a very fine gravel and was a thick layer and suspected waste was getting trapped where I couldn't reach and resulted in constant high nitrates. So yesterday removed all of my gravel and replaced it with larger stoned substrate so would have a less chance of getting trapped and my assumptions were right, never seen so much mess suddenly appear from deep down where my syphon didn't reach.
I then did a 70%-80% water change and tested a few hours after with the Salifert Nitrate kit and is down to 25 when it was 40PPM!
Would like it lower than 25, but better than 40 or above
So yesterday I started to suspect my substrate as I was using a very fine gravel and was a thick layer and suspected waste was getting trapped where I couldn't reach and resulted in constant high nitrates. So yesterday removed all of my gravel and replaced it with larger stoned substrate so would have a less chance of getting trapped and my assumptions were right, never seen so much mess suddenly appear from deep down where my syphon didn't reach.
I then did a 70%-80% water change and tested a few hours after with the Salifert Nitrate kit and is down to 25 when it was 40PPM!
Would like it lower than 25, but better than 40 or above
