Nitrate had gone up high in a few days

[gilly]

My Nitrate was at .10ppm then a few days when i added some fishes and corals the nitrate went up to .30ppm I was shocked so i did a water 20%change every other day so far. I have a 25gallon tank but i think i have too many fish inside. I got a true percula, 5 cardinal, a dragon goby and a six line wrasse. with toadstool and frogspawn coral and featherduster. Everything is still alive and doing fine and i only feed them half a cube of brine shrimp and as for iodine i only use a little bit per week. How would i lower the nitrate besides water changes?

 

[electrikat]

You do have more than the recommended amount of fish. Brine shrimp cubes are not enough nutrition for them. Processed foods also are a source of nitrates. You might want to start making your own food. Any time you add fish you will have an additional load on your bio filter and it will take a short while for your bio filter to catch up to the load. Additional water changes will do the trick though. The corals and the other inverts don't really add to the load much, if at all. Water changes are always the best way to cure a nitrate problem but you need to determine the cause of very high nitrates. You also don't mention what kind of filtration system you have in place and that would really help us to help you.

 

[gilly]

my filtration system is not so good, its an Eclipse 2 to so its built in with a bio wheel. I think my crushed coral is a bit too think so im taking alot out lately so its really thin at the bottom so the waste will be gone.

You do have more than the recommended amount of fish. Brine shrimp cubes are not enough nutrition for them. Processed foods also are a source of nitrates. You might want to start making your own food. Any time you add fish you will have an additional load on your bio filter and it will take a short while for your bio filter to catch up to the load. Additional water changes will do the trick though. The corals and the other inverts don't really add to the load much, if at all. Water changes are always the best way to cure a nitrate problem but you need to determine the cause of very high nitrates. You also don't mention what kind of filtration system you have in place and that would really help us to help you.

 

[Brodie]

You're overstocked. You're going to want to have fewer fish in that tank. I go by 1 inch of fish per 5 gallons, but other people have their own opinions. If you're using crushed coral as a substrate, you shouldn't take it out. Although finer grain sands are better at housing beneficial bacteria (smaller grains have more surface area), the more sand you have in your tank the more good bacteria you will house.

 

[Brenden]

I have never had one but have heard lots of people say the bio wheels become a nitrate factory when they get some age on them. That on top of being overstocked.

 

[lando]

I got a true percula, 5 cardinal, a dragon goby and a six line wrasse.

Way over-stocked. This is most of the problem.

i only feed them half a cube of brine shrimp

How often? Do you thaw and rinse the brine before putting it into the tank? Not a great food choice as it has little nutritional value.

as for iodine i only use a little bit per week.

Why? Iodine is one o the more dangerous things you can add to your tank. Are you testing for it? In a 25 gal tank, adding iodine is flirting with disaster.

How would i lower the nitrate besides water changes?

Water changes are your only real way to lower them now. Adding more biological filtration like LR will help keep them down. I would also remove the biowheel and add LR rubble to the filtration compartments of the eclipse hood.