NitrAtes high :(

[CluelessInNY]

Not sure if this is high, actually. My et kit has a "low range" and a 'high range" for each color. I am recently getting readings of 20 (low range) -100 (high range). Is this at critical mass?
How do I lower them? Am I overfeeding?

[melosu58]

How often are you feeding?

[CluelessInNY]

Hiya melo!
I LOVE your avatar BTW! GO COWBOYS!
I am feeding mysis once daily and, from what I've read, my goby needs a couple of feedings, so I've been dropping a tiny few pellets of sinking food in front of his cave once again in the evening. Unles the clown sees it, he gets to eat it all. I don't see any old food left in my tank in the moring, as my ever-growing hermits leave tracks all over the tank each night and scavenge the rest.
Maybe more frequent PWC with distilled water?

[melosu58]

Originally Posted by CluelessInNY

Maybe more frequent PWC with distilled water?

Yes this will help. I do frequent weekly PWC`s. As far as feeding I feed mysis or flake every other day and a piece of seaweed selects on the other days for my tangs. How often are you doing PWC`s? Sorry about all the questions. Just trying to gauge where you are. And yes go Cowboys!!!!

[CluelessInNY]

I've been doing 20% changes every two weeks. My parameters have been getting high on nitrAtes for a few weeks, reaching this high today. I also have changed out an old filter about a three weeks ago. I let it "mature" a bit for ahwile next to the old one, which was falling to pieces. Once it has some slime on it, I pulled out the old one and left the new one to work. Could this be causing issues?

[Kurt_Nelson]

I'd suggest maybe getting a different nitrate test kit to see if you really have high nitrates to start with. I'd recommend Salifert - you can either read through the side of the tube for low range or through the top for high range.

[melosu58]

Kurt has a good idea there. Maybe also run a sample by your LFS to test.

[cmor1701d]

It sounds like you are keeping filter material to catch detritus in the tank. That should get rinsed out weekly at a minimum. The slime that is building up on it is decaying matter that may be causing your high nitrates.

Please leave football comments (and avatar's Mike) in football related forums. Go Jints! :p

[roka64]

Just to add to Cmor, when you rinse it, rinse it in your old SW to help keep the beneficial bacteria alive.