Nitrates off the scale!

[Speakerman]

I've got a 55 gallon that has A LOT of fish in it. A LOT...

The ammonia level is 0, Nitrites 0, but the Nitrates look to surpass the highest reading of 160!!!

Should I do a 50 % water change and see what happens from there? What kind of changes should I be seeing after the water change?

 

[triazole]

u could another test kit just to be sure. sometimes there are faulty readings.
in case the readings are right, a 50% pwc is definitely going to help reduce the nitrates, but if they build up consistently before u do ur weekly pwc's, then u might have to rethink the stocking levels in the tank.
HTH

 

[JRagg]

Assuming you have zero nitrates in your tap, then a 50% change should cut it in half. As already stated you may need to step up your water changes or rethink stocking levels.

Water changes should fix the problem, but it may take a lot of them.

 

[Purrbox]

Nitrates indicate how often/large of water changes you need to do. With levels that high your current water change schedule is insufficient for your tank. You will either need to up the % of your water change, do more frequent water changes, or both. Ideally you want to keep your Nitrates as close to 0 as possible with under 20ppm being a good goal. For those of us that already have high Nitrates in our tapwater, below 40ppm is a much more reasonable goal and still acceptable.

Go ahead and do a 50% water change. If you've got 0 Nitrates in your tap water, then your Nitrates should be halved down to 80ppm. I would do another 50% water change each day until your Nitrates are under at least 40ppm, and preferably 20ppm.

 

[src]

I've seen reports of large drops in Nitrates killing fish, if the fish have gotten used to the high levels. You might want to try to step your nitrate level down more gradually, with 20-25% water changes once a day until they are down to the 30-40 range.

 

[triazole]

what src is referring to is the 'old tank syndrome'. if the tank has been set up for a long time, then definitely a sudden drop in nitrate levels can be fatal to the fish. but if it's relatively new, then larger pwc's would do more good than harm the fish.

 

[Speakerman]

Allright guys, I think I'm going to do 25% PWC every day for a week and see where that gets me.

Thanks for all the help.

 

[Speakerman]

I've been doing 25% PWC daily and haven't seen a difference in Nitrates.

I tested all my other tanks and they are fine. Thus the test kit is working properly.

I guess I should step it up to 50% PWC each day.

 

[CaysE]

Perhaps some java moss?

 

[Speakerman]

Where can I find this Moss?

 

[CaysE]

All of the bigger LFS and chain stores have had it in my area. The one small LFS near me didn't though. It's a relatively fast grower and sucks up nitrates pretty fast. I can't say if this is a fix for some other issue that's possibly in your tank, but it certainly couldn't hurt.

 

[Speakerman]

okay....so I did a 40% water change and tested about 30 minutes later...the nitrates are still off the scale...

Then I tested my other tanks...and they are fine.

Could it be due to the seeds I put in there? Or the low light plants...

 

[Purrbox]

If the seeds are rotting this would put extra Ammonia into the tank to be converted to Nitrates. If the plants are healthy they'll consume Nitrates, however if they have leaves that are dieing they'll contribute the problem. Remove anything that is rotting.

Have you had the the chance to test your tap water? It could be that part of the problem is high levels of Nitrate in the tap water. Sounds like the water changes aren't getting you anywhere which probably means that the levels were much higher than initially realized. If you're fish aren't showing any adverse affects to the water changes you might want to try an even bigger water change to make it easier to reset you water parameters.

 

[Guest]

i'd definately test the tap water.

if the nitrates in the tap are low, now that you have been doing some frequent small changes, i'd do a big one, 80-90% with a full gravel vac, and lots of cleaning/pruning. remove anything dead plant wise. check the gravel and filter for dead material/fish.

rinse the filter media in a bucket of old tank water.

check under ornaments for debris and dead stuff. rinse the ornaments in old tank water. maybe even give them a gentle wipe with a clean washcloth.


if you have the access to divy up your stock, do so until you can get things under control, then slowly re-introduce if you must have a big stock in the tank.

remove any seeds that aren't growing already. if you want to continue to stimulate them to grow, do it in a bucket with some substrate and a desk lamp or something with a CF bulb from walmart in it. reintroduce to your tank once they start to sprout. this will keep the seeds from rotting and the casings on the seeds/bulbs from decaying in the tank.


if all else fails or you have high nitrates in the tap, perhaps try a dose of easy balance from tetra.