Nitrate levels too high!!??? Help please

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

J-T-T

Aquarium Advice Regular
Joined
Jan 6, 2012
Messages
52
Location
Seattle
Hi everyone!!

I am hoping you guys can give me some advice on how to drop my nitrate levels in my tank & some possible causes of out of control levels

Here are the details:
55g tank
Been doing every other day 10% pwc changes due to the nitrate levels and every seven days a 30% pwc. ( not trying to shock my fish with dramatic level changes)
Ammonia is 0
Nitrite is 0
PH is 7.4
Nitrate sky high. At best I have been able to get it to 40 with the above routine
Fish family includes
10 tetras
About 15 barbs. ( the last time mom dropped her eggs they hid pretty well as I started with 4)
A Borneo sucker.
 
How often and how much do you feed them? I tend to overfeed my leopard ctenopoma tank, which causes my high nitrates. Just did a wc today. My level was 80, so I did a 50% change which dropped it to 40. Will do another tomorrow to get it to 20. You need much larger changes to get your level down.
 
Thanx!! I will do bigger PWC's. I read somewhere online that big changes cause too big of a swing that could cause issues but I will do a 50% this weekend. Thanx again!! Oh on the feeding. My son has been doing that so I will pay more attention as to how much he is putting in for everyone!
 
Check your tap water with an API master test kit. When I do a 50% change on my 10 gallon, I drip it in with an airline to cause a very gradual change - it takes hours. I do it because my tap water is 8.2 and tank is 7.6 to 7.8.
I also keep a tub of water that has an airstone in it - that helps lower the pH after day or so. Make sure you match the temp as well.

On my 55 gallon tanks I just run the water in very slowly with my aqueon water changer.
 
On my 55G and 75G, I've been doing 75%-80% PWC's with no ill-effect on the fish. I just did one this last weekend. And the tank looks great, and the fish are happy.
 
I usually do a 50% water change on my tank. As long as you temperature match and the PH isn't too far off you should be good to go.
 
Thanx to all!!! I will start to do bigger PWC. you have all eased my concerns about hurting my fish. Good to know I can make a bigger difference for them in a good way faster!!!
 
Back
Top Bottom