Nitrate Problems in my 30gallon Day 2

[LordMatthew34]

Full disclosure:


I made a tactical error

I recently changed the filters out of my tank. Against all common sense and advice that i've read on here, I removed both at the same time. I figured that my tank has been running for over 4 years now, and the two hard media filters on the inside would hold enough beneficial bacteria to keep my tank in sink...

WRONG!

My Nitrates are off the chart red on my API master test kit. My amonia and nitrites are fine...

The first day I cleaned my gravel and did a 30% water change. Tested today and Nitrates were down a little, but still very red. So I did a 50% water change and tested again an hour later. Still very red... Not sure what else to do at this point but keep doing water changes.

I only have 3 fish in there right now. 2 Albino Cory's, and 1 Panda Cory. I had 2 fancy gold fish and a couple guppies in there with the cory's, but the guppies died off and I gave the gold fish to Petco.

I'm looking forward to redoing this tank, but didn't expect this Nitrate problem... Any tips to bring this down, or am I doing the right thing by changing the water every day? The 3 fish in there appear to be doing fine.

 

[HUKIT]

Did you test for ammonia and nitrites? What were your nitrate levels usually at? And lastly whats your tank information and water change schedule? A little background information goes along way. But for every 50% water change will reduce it by half naturally, so that's the first step is daily water changes to control and reduce the nitrates then the root cause must be diagnosed.

 

[LordMatthew34]

I normally do 30% water changes every week, and gravel clean every other week (since i recently started taking care of the tank). Before I really didn't do anything to maintain, and the fish were fine. Ever since finding this forum, i've started to grow fond of the whole aquarium thing, and would like to try my luck with cooler fish.

Ammo was at 0.0ppm, and Nitrites were also 0.0ppm. I did not test the PH.

The tank is 30 gallons. I've had it for years. I tried testing the tap water that i've been using to refill, and the nitrates in that are 0.0ppm.

Moving forward I feel like i'm actually starting to learn about this stuff. I recently acquired a beautiful 55gallon tall, but i'm hesitant to set it up until I get this 30 gallon under control.

So the water changes is what's going to bring this down? Do you think my beneficial bacteria will need to rebuild itself, or should it still be good? I have an Emperor 400 filter that has two bio wheels that I did not change, and 2 hard media filters that I did not change. The only two pieces that I took out where the carbon filters that were pretty shot (because they had never been changed).

Thanks again for the the advice!

 

[HUKIT]

I'm confused on where the nitrates are coming from, removing the filter pads won't effect anything with the biowheels and hard media still intact. If your changing 30% water every week, overfiltering the tank, and a very small bioload of three fish, something is not adding up. Keep up the daily water changes until they're down to 20ppm or lower.

 

[LordMatthew34]

Just tested today and my ammo is @ 0.0ppm, Nitrites are @ 0.0ppm, and again my Nitrates are off the chart red!! This is after I did a 50% water change yesterday... I've tested the tap water that i've put into the tank with the conditioner and it's fine.

The only real difference that i've done in the tank since getting rid of the gold fish is feeding the cory's sinking shrimp pellets.. They seem happier then ever playing around on the bottom. Will these high Nitrates be harmful to them over the long run?

The water temp is 73.8 degrees.