i'm so diggidy dag gone mad......

[tropicfishman]

hey everyone, i'm really mad now, its been almost 3 months I would say and everytime I test my Nitrates and Phosphates they are absolutely through the roof. The odd thing is the Phosphates in my other 10 gallon are extremely low, almost none. but the nitrates are high in both. ammonia is fine, nitrites is fine so is ph and GK and KH. just my nitrates won't go down. Now with my phosphates i'm using this coarse green phosphate pad stuff in my filters. Each tank has the same size piece of pad and yet one tank has already almost zero'd out while the other one has only been reduced 50%. I don't know whats going on. Anyways I was going to test my tap water, but I wanted to see what I can test for, can I test for everything or just certain things? Oh and by the way i've been doing PWC's of up to 50% every 3-4 days the last couple months to get the nitrates down and its not working. I have nothing dead or decaying in my tank either. any suggestions? lol

 

[hashbaz]

50% water changes every 4 days should lower your nitrates in a hurry.

I see two possibilities: there are nitrates in your tap water or your test kit is bad. If your tap water tests OK, you might take a water sample to a LFS and have them test it for you.

 

[Zagz]

You can test your tap water for nitrates to be sure. How often do you feed them? I found that when I had high nitrates it was a result of my feeding schedule. Both nitrates and phosphates can be attributed to uneaten food. Also how often do you do water changes? Hashbaz is right about the water changes bringing the levels down.

 

[tropicfishman]

I feed them twice a day once at night and once in the morning and they usually eat everything excpet some really small particles, i'm thinking my tap water has high nitrates, A girl that lives somewhat close to me told me her water was testing high for nitrates and she had to get a R/O unit and it cured it alltogether, so let me go test the nitrates and phosphates and i'll post the results

 

[jim532]

feed them once a day or once every other day. Should help a lot, also when you do your water changes are treating the water with any chemicals? is so maybe you're over dosing.

 

[tropicfishman]

Well I tested the tap water and heres the results: Phosphates: 1.0 - 1.5 ppm (hard to tell) Nitrates: 10ppm. Alot lower than what I had suspected them to be. I've only had one two live plants and there gone now. Except one plant disappered and I have no idea what happened to it, it was a hornwort stem actually, barely had any leaves lol. but thats been months ago I doubt that is the problem

 

[Menagerie]

Keep in mind, there should be nitrates in your tank if it is properly cycled. Depending on what you read and what fish you have, many common aquarium fish can handle nitrates between 40-80 ppm. I'm not sure what the phosphate levels should be, but I have a feeling that if your fish are fine and there's nothing decaying in the tank, the tank is healthy.

 

[tropicfishman]

oh yeah there perfectly healthy, it just bugs the crap out of me that I can't get them lower