Cycle Complete, Nitrate Question

[craigieboy01]

Have just finished my fishless cycle on my tank, qualifying week complete but just done all my testing tonight and my Nitrate was away up at 160ppm, do you think i need to test again?? Or is their something more wrong and what does that mean?

 

[Mikaila31]

Have you done a water change? Once a fishless cycle is complete you will have high nitrates. A full water change will pull these back down, then you are good to add fish. Its best to keep nitrates under 50ppm if possible. I would suggest testing your tap water as well, some get a decent about of nitrate out of the tap. I get around 20ppm.

 

[craigieboy01]

Have you done a water change? Once a fishless cycle is complete you will have high nitrates. A full water change will pull these back down, then you are good to add fish. Its best to keep nitrates under 50ppm if possible. I would suggest testing your tap water as well, some get a decent about of nitrate out of the tap. I get around 20ppm.

Hi Mikaila31, I havent done my big water change yet, I was going to do it tommorow and buy the fish on Sat, I did check my tap water for Nitrates and its about 20ppm.

 

[OldMan47]

It is not unreasonable to find 160 ppm of nitrate in a newly cycled tank. Just figure out how much water change it would take to get you back to 20 ppm or lower. I would guess about a 90% water change would do it. After that, go ahead and do the large water change using dechlorinated, temperature matched makeup water. If you still measure more than 20 ppm, try another small change of only 50%.

 

[craigieboy01]

Thanks Oldman, I will keep an eye on it.