Problems with Nitrates!

[Legit Fish]

so i have this 8 gallon tank with fluvial plant stratum and was hoping if anybody else uses this. my nitrates have gone up to 40 ppm and it is killing some of my shrimps in this tank. currently housing 4 chili rasboras, 10 tiger shrimps and now 7 rili shrimps with lots of plants. i want to know if maybe the cause of this is the fluvial plant stratum, if anybody uses this tell me your water parameters currently. oh and the bag says it helps nitrifying bacteria. does this mean it is giving off big nitrates? also how can i quickly put the nitrates down is there a filter media that would help?

 

[Legit Fish]

anyone?

 

[wildroseofky]

I have not used it but I did a little research for you. I found several reviews that said it caused ammonia spikes in their tanks. That makes sense because of the organic compounds in the substrate. Beneficial bacteria feed off of ammonia and produce Nitrate. That is probably why you had a nitrate spike and why the substrate says it helps with the nitrate. You need to do water changes until the nitrates stay below 20. Shrimp and many fish have bad reactions to high nitrates. I learned that the hard way this week. I moved some plants and dug around in my substrate which caused a nitrate spike. I have lost all my blue pearls and a lot of ghost shrimp.

 

[Legit Fish]

thank you! i thought nobody will ever respond! i just finished doing a 50% water change and it went down a bit close to 20 ppm hopefully it will stay like that until this saturday when i do another water change.