how to lowering nitrate level ????

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Nitrates can only be removed by two main things. Water changes, and plants.
Water changes are by far the most important.

I'm assuming that your Ammonia and Nitrite levels are zero?
 
i have high nitrate in my tank.....i dont know why ???......i have 2 plants.....but i think the main thing is there is so much waste in my tank low level......i have canister filter....i dont know if it is do the job.....yesterday a small cichlid past away infront of my eyes.....her gills is colored red brown like a lever meat.....i tested the nitrate and i found it about 20mg and the nitrite is 0.3 and a little bit higher.....so i did water change...but the nitrate still high.....any idea ???...is there any chemical method i can do ??
 
i affraid i dont have ammonia tester....its hard to find such things at my country ( i live in syria in the middle east )....the new canister filter is running about 30 days ago....any advice ??
 
The red gills you describe are indicative of ammonia poisoning, but it could also be a great number of other things.

In most cases the advice is the same, do regular 50% water changes.
 
The water in the canister should cycle with the pump, so if you change 50% of the total water in the tank, you will also be changing 50% of the water in the filter. Do not clean the filter media, because they house the bacteria that reduce ammonia and nitrite. Removing waste from the canister and from the bottom of the fish tank is a good idea as well. Nitrate is probably not your issue. The most common problem from high nitrate levels is an abundance of alge. You likely have and excess of ammonia, and the best way to clear that is to change the water.

What size is your fish tank and what is the turn over from your canister filters pumps? Do you also have air stones in the tank?
 
I know you mentioned you had the canister filter for about 30 days, but how long has the tank been running? What you could do is siphon out the gravel in the bottom of you tank too. Most of us use a python, but you could do the same thing just using a large hose. Just get a siphon going and try and suck up the dirt in the low level of the tank. Then throw out the water that you siphoned out and replace it with new, conditioned water, preferably RO water. That way you know you have removed as much gunk as possible and replaced it with pure clean water
 
my tank

i have 54 gallon tank.......it is running for over 5 months
my fishes started to past away over month ago.......i think the main troubles is bacteria infection also high level of nitrate.......have any one heard of denitrification filters ??????
 
yes, but they are hard to get going. You need to have a fairly deep sand bed, like 4-5 inches with water circulation passing through it. A reverse undergravel filter works good for this because you do not want oxygen in it.
the fish that have died, are their any unusual signs on them? Spots? in particular is there anything on them that looks like salt, or sugar stuck to their outside? The remaining fish could have the beginning of this too.

A denitrification filter will take much longer to set up than the time you are looking to save you fish. The best bet would be water changes to get the nitrate down.
 
Denitrification filters are filters imbued with substances that attact nitrogen based chemicles (ammonia, nitrate and nitrite) to them. You would need to change these out frequently and that will be expensive. Doing water changes is pretty cheap, unless water prices are outrageous where you live. A much cheaper filter material would be activated carbon. Activated carbon is charcole that has been processed so it has insain amounts of surface area. This surface area allows it to filter lots of chemicals and particulants out of the water. Still, water changes are best.

It sounds like you don't have enough bio media to support the ammount of waste going into your tank. I use Lee's Corner Filters https://www.petsolutions.com/Default.aspx?ItemID=10813405
with filter floss in them because its really really cheap. They have specific ceramic media and bio balls that are supposed to be good for allowing bacteria to grow and reduce the ammonia. It all comes down to water changes in the end though.
 
It doesn't have to be bio balls, but something extra for the bacteria to grow on would be a good idea. Like I said I use filter floss because it's cheap. It's not as effective as bio balls because they don't have as much surface area, but I can get enough to change all my filters (I have 20 of them) for 5 USD, where as enough ceramic would be more than 40 USD. What you use is not as important as the fact the media is never removed from the water for a long time, cleaned with chemicals (if they need rinsed, swish them in a bucket of old tank water) or exposed to chlorine or chloramines from tap water. These things will kill the bacteria living on the media and defeat the purpose. BTW the slime that grows on these is good. That's the stuff that is eating the ammonia.
 
The whole idea is to get something with a lot of surface area for bacteria to grow on. The more surface area the better. I'm sure someone has a more scientific explination than I, but the ceramic rings are smaller, and thus easier to fit in the trays of most canister filters. No matter if you use ceramic rings, or bio balls or filter floss, use as much as you can fit and don't do anything to kill the bacteria on it. And remember to do your water changes too.
 
That's pretty much the scientific explanation! Surface area is everything. It's not just in your filter of course, it's every surface that is submerged within your fish tank. The thing with filters is that they have a very large surface area, compared with everything else in your tank, and water is pumped through it.

But the bacteria on your ornaments for example, plays its part too.
 
Mark Hewitt said:
That's pretty much the scientific explanation! Surface area is everything. It's not just in your filter of course, it's every surface that is submerged within your fish tank. The thing with filters is that they have a very large surface area, compared with everything else in your tank, and water is pumped through it.

But the bacteria on your ornaments for example, plays its part too.
Click to expand...

Mark is very correct that it's not just surface area on the filter, however if you are adding filter surface area, you want to put it where it will get in contact with the most water possible, which is in the filter. I figured there was some other reason so many people like bio balls compared with ceramic rings. I've got two kids, so I'm too cheap to care so long as it get the job done.
 
im on make a development of DIY denitrification filter.....so which is better....coil based or sulfur based.....and does the sulfur hurt the fishes ??.....does the filter needs lights above it to make the bacteria getting higher ???......any idea ???
 
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