The time has come for some help...

[Hairboy]

Nitrate at 120ppm. Please help...

Hello Everyone.

My name is Matt, and I've been keeping Fancy goldfish for a mere 5 years now. I tend to be fairly thorough in researching things, and up until now I felt like I was doing a good job when it came to looking after my two fancy goldfish - Gloria (5 year old Fantail) and Dudley (2 year old Black Moor). It appears that I was wrong...

I moved house a year ago, and since then, the fish haven't thrived. I would greatly appreciate any advice you can give me, as I've tried lots of different methods to help their symptoms, but to no avail. Please allow me to elaborate...

I have a 125L (27.5 gallon) Fluval Roma tank, with a Fluval U3 filter and a Eheim thermocontrol heater to bring the tank to 23 centigrade because I'm in the UK in a flat with no double glazing, and it gets freezing in the winter! As I said, I have a 5 year old fantail and a 2 year old black moor. They behave fine most of the time, but recently they appear a bit sluggish. Skulking in corners. The black moor has also developed one very cloudy eye, perhaps slightly enlarged. Originally I thought it was because he might have injured it on a spiky fake plant, so I removed all fake plants and put real ones in. I also used aquarium salt and Melaflix at different points in case it was an infection. Nothing has cleared it up. His other eye is OK, perhaps slightly cloud, and with a small red lump in it.

I have done water test, and it appears the nitrates are very high. I don't know if this could be the cause of their issues. Here are the readings of the tank:

pH: 7.6
Ammonia: 0.25ppm
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 120ppm

This is the analysis of the tap water used to fill the tank:

pH: 7.6
Ammonia: 0.25ppm
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 20ppm

Obviously the nitrate is way too high. A couple of weeks ago I started using a bag of Seachem Purigen in place of one of the carbon filters in the Fluval U3 filter, I also added Seachem Matrix. No sign that this has had any positive effect on the nitrate levels yet.

My cleaning regime is using a vacuum once a week to remove 25% of the water. The tank is planted with 5 real plants and the substrate is an inch /3cm deep fine black aquarium gravel.

As for feeding... I feed them 4 pinches of Tetra Goldfish Gold Japan pellets for fancy goldfish, once a day in the evening. I also give them a few peas once a week.

Any help would be gratefully received. I hate seeing them so glum, and really want to sort Dudley's eye out. Please check out attached images.

Thanks so much for taking the time.

All the best,

Matt.

 

[charliebankston]

Nitrate under 40 is ideal. Sounds like a bacterial infection. You might have to order some meds stronger than melafix to get it cleared up

 

[Caliban07]

Hi Matt,

When you moved did you start up the tank with a brand new filter sponge? Fish release ammonia which is extremely toxic and the microbes that make the ammonia safe by turning it in to less toxic nitrates live on the sponge.

If you changed, washed with tap or let the sponge dry out you probably lost a good portion of your microbes.

Nitrates are the ‘smoking gun’ left behind from high ammonia loadings and are relatively safe in low amounts. Your tap water therefore is fine. You probably live in an area with lots of farms where farm fertiliser run off enters the source water.

0.25ppm ammonia is also fine. Read the article below to find out why.

https://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f12/your-guide-to-ammonia-toxicity-159994.html

Having said that, just because ammonia is low now doesn’t mean it was low initially. When fish are stressed they get sick very easily.

*Plan of action*

Find out about your source water by loading the quality report webpage.

Find out if you house uses a water softener.

Change more water. 25% isn’t enough. I would do 50% at least one a week until the fish show signs of recovery

Add a source of aeration such as a powerful air stone. The gold fish will appreciate this.

Add floating plants like duckweed - the duckweed will take in forms of nitrogen like ammonia and nitrate. They have access to carbon dioxide and grow much faster. The goldfish will eat it too. Free food.

Stop the chemicals. They are a useless waste of money I’m afraid. Fresh water, plants, oxygen, time and your eyeballs are the most effective troubleshooting tools for most aquariums.

Good luck.

 

[Hairboy]

Thanks so much for you detailed answer.

I think you may be right, and that there may have been an ammonia spike when I moved. So if his eye is caused by ammonia damage, is there no cure, or because he is still quite young, his eye will regenerate? Or like Charlie said, could it be fungal/bacterial, and in which case should I get antibiotics?

We are in an area surrounded by farms. Good spot.

We do have a water softener, but I made sure that we plumbed in a separate cold water feed to the kitchen sink where we get our drinking water, and where I fill the tank from that does not go through the softener - it does however go through a water filter that removes chlorine and heavy metals from the water - but this can only be a good thing, right?

Here is what it says about my local water supply:

Calcium: 78mg/l
Magnesium: 8mg/l
Flouride: 0.09mg/l
Hardness: 227mg/l CACO3
Alkalinity: 298mg/l HCO3
Chloride: 30mg/l
Nitrate: 17mg/l
Phosphate: 1.5mg/l
Sulphate: 26mg/l
Sodium: 48mg/l
Conductivity: 648μS/cm @200

I will get some duckweed and an aeration stone. The aeration stone won't cause a load of current that will stress them out will it? I only ask because up until recently I had the U3 set on the top jet so that it could move the most surface water, and hence aerate the tank better, but I they were struggling with the current as a result.

None of this explains why they are suddenly a bit listless, does it? What are the long term affects of such high nitrates (120ppm +) in the tank? I feel it may have been around this level for some time...

Thanks a lot, again, for taking the time.

 

[Hairboy]

Nitrate under 40 is ideal. Sounds like a bacterial infection. You might have to order some meds stronger than melafix to get it cleared up

Thanks, Charlie.

What kind of meds would you suggest?

 

[Caliban07]

Thanks so much for you detailed answer.

You’re welcome

I think you may be right, and that there may have been an ammonia spike when I moved. So if his eye is caused by ammonia damage, is there no cure, or because he is still quite young, his eye will regenerate? Or like Charlie said, could it be fungal/bacterial, and in which case should I get antibiotics?

The eye might be an infection caused by stress due to poor water quality. I’m not an expert with fish disease so I can’t comment. I am a proponent of using natural methods to aid fish recovery rather then medicinal chemicals so cleaner water would be my preferred choice here.

it does however go through a water filter that removes chlorine and heavy metals from the water - but this can only be a good thing, right?

Absolutely

Here is what it says about my local water supply:

Calcium: 78mg/l
Magnesium: 8mg/l
Flouride: 0.09mg/l
Hardness: 227mg/l CACO3
Alkalinity: 298mg/l HCO3
Chloride: 30mg/l
Nitrate: 17mg/l
Phosphate: 1.5mg/l
Sulphate: 26mg/l
Sodium: 48mg/l
Conductivity: 648μS/cm @200

***Hypothesis only*** I read an old article by Joe Gargas that makes me wonder about sodium and chloride levels in tap water. He says that if sodium and chloride ions become the major players in the water composition, the fish can have a hard time with osmoregulation due to the solubility of both these ions. If these ions are the major players the water is said to be imbalanced.

This does make sense to me but I don’t know how scientific this gets in terms of evidence. The examples Joe gave were also at much higher levels than what is shown in your tap water and were caused by chemicals additions such as stress coats and ammo locks etc that use sodium and chloride in their ingredients.

A lot of these chemicals also reduce oxygen based on their reactions. but you could try cutting you tap water with rain water or reverse osmosis water to reduce these elements.

I will get some duckweed and an aeration stone. The aeration stone won't cause a load of current that will stress them out will it? I only ask because up until recently I had the U3 set on the top jet so that it could move the most surface water, and hence aerate the tank better, but I they were struggling with the current as a result.

It depends on how powerful the air pump is. Airstones sit low in the tank and move lower poorly oxygenated levels of water up towards the surface and break the surface tension. They keep the surface free of films that can stifle gas exchange. They are a no brainier in my eyes.

None of this explains why they are suddenly a bit listless, does it? What are the long term affects of such high nitrates (120ppm +) in the tank? I feel it may have been around this level for some time...

Nobody knows, nitrate toxicity is dependent on a lot of factors and the studies out there only apply to species we do not keep in our aquariums. Because we know it is toxic at some level, though very high, it would make sense to keep them lower.

The fact is that nitrates can only exist through aerobic nitrification of ammonia (unless you dose nitrate fertilisers) which means your system is producing a lot of ammonia which is quickly turned to nitrate. The nitrification process consumes oxygen too so the cleaner the water, the more plants you have and the better the aeration will all in turn support intense nitrification.

 

[charliebankston]

I would try to get the water corrected before medicating

 

[Hairboy]

Thanks so much, both of you, for your help. I'll let you know how I get on.

 

[m.j.gomez]

Hello, you might consider using a plant on top of tank w/roots in water. They help my tanks w/nitrates & ammonia. I use golden pothos vine but there are others that can be used. Hope this helps!!!!!