Help Bad Water Parameters!

[KittyKat]

Glad to hear all the problems are sorted! How are the fish doing now? Better?

 

[Jackiee]

Fish are doing great, as happy and bubbly as ever. Not to mention very bright in coloration!
They've situated into their new home great and get excited when people come up to the tank, especially me.
I love Cichlids for this reason

 

[Jackiee]

Okay.. So, I don't understand..

I just now did a 25% water change to reduce my nitrates,
because after retesting my nitrates (I wasn't shaking the test tube long enough)
I got a completely different reading than 10 ppm like before, and my nitrates really ended up being 80 ppm.

So, I did a water change to reduce them..

I retested my water right after the water change and..

Ammonia: 0.50 ppm !
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Nitrate: 40 ppm

..My nitrates didn't change much at all really.
And since my tap water contains ammonia, now my ammonia levels are back to 0.50 ppm, when they were just zero before the water change! What the heck!

Is my tank going to cycle all over again because of this?!

I thought since this tank was bigger, water changes with my tap water wouldn't effect it because, it (the ammonia my tap water contains) would be diluted alot once in the tank from the larger water volume, unlike my old 29 galllon!

 

[Jackiee]

Just tested my water again after a few hours..

Ammonia: 0.25 ppm
Nitrite: 0.25 ppm
Nitrate: seem to be at 80 ppm now

So, my ammonia has already started converting into nitrite, as my ammonia levels dropped from 0.50 to 0.25 ppm, and my nitrite levels went up from 0 ppm to 0.25 ppm.
But, as my nitrite turns into nitrate, it's just going to push my nitrate levels back up to where I started...


hmm.

 

[KittyKat]

Aye, maybe you should consider using NitraZorb, or something like that in the long term (can't remember if I already said?), it will do the nitrate, but I think also removes some ammonia and nitrite.

 

[loraxchick]

Glad to see things have sorted themselves with the ammonia. I would not be overly concerned with nitrates of 80ppm. Unless you have some really sensitive species (which doesnt appear you do) fish can be perfectly fine into the 100's of ppms of nitrAte (it is not anywhere NEAR as toxic as ammonia or nitrIte. Wouldnt worry too much about the nitrates if fish are vibrantly colored and acting normally.
best of luck
Cheers

 

[Jackiee]

Alright thanks guys.

And yes, my fish were very active and normal, not to mention very colorful even when my nitrates were high.
They remained so even after I did the water change,

I just tested tonight, my stats were:

Ammonia: 0 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Nitrate: 80 ppm
PH: my regular ph test says 7.6, while my high range ph test says 7.4.... hmm. guess i'll go with 7.5


And loraxchick, that must be how my uncle gets along with his tank.. he has a 125 gallon. Said he checked his water regularly for about a year, and everything kept being the same and his water was perfectly fine, so he quit testing it.
Hasn't tested it in about 6 years now, and all is well. He only does a water change once, maybe twice a year to get the gunk out of the gravel bed, and thats it.

 

[CrustyOnEastCoast]

I thought since this tank was bigger, water changes with my tap water wouldn't effect it because, it (the ammonia my tap water contains) would be diluted alot once in the tank from the larger water volume, unlike my old 29 galllon!

It doesn't matter if your tank is the size of a sugar cube, or if it is the size of an art museum. If you have 2ppm of ammonia in your tap water, then the following will always be true:

100% water change = 2ppm ammonia in tank
50% water change = 1ppm ammonia in tank
25% water change = 0.5ppm ammonia in tank
20% water change = 0.4ppm ammonia in tank
10% water change = 0.2ppm ammonia in tank.

So, what you said made perfect sense .. you did a 25% water change and your tank ended up with 0.5ppm ammonia in it! Exactly!

The Seachem Prime will bind that ammonia to ammonium for about 24 hours. (ammonium still registers as ammonia on the API test kit). So, as long as your bio filtration can process that ammonia (and resulting nitrite) in 24 hours (in addition to the existing fish waste it is already handling) .. you are doing pretty good.

By the way, building up nitrates and doing regular water changes to get rid of them is perfectly normal. Your (uncle was it?) who never changes his tank water ... is a very unique situation. I have never heard of such a thing! ... unless he has a heavily, heavily planted tank. In some cases, a VERY heavily planted tank might be able to process all the nitrates.

Looks like your biofilter is processing all that ammonium rather quickly, well before the bond is broken and it turns back into free ammonia ... so you should be fine ... just keep your water changes small .. personally, I would not change more than 20% at a time.

You might consider, doing frequent, even smaller water changes (like 10%). That way, you will only end up with 0.2ppm ammonia in your tank after each water change. The down side, is that you would have to do it pretty frequently, and it would be hard to keep track of what small part of your gravel bed your were able to clean each time. But, it looks like your filter will handle the 0.5ppm ammonia in time.

 

[Jackiee]

How low should my nitrates preferably be? They are steady at 80 ppm right now..

And my uncle has no live plants in his tank, he has major filtration going on though, if that makes any difference?

He doesn't have very sensitive fish though, he has a red bellied Pacu fish, about 4 blood parrots, a Pleco, and 3 other fish i'm not sure about.
Idk how he does it, unless his fish just dont respond very much to the high nitrate levels.

 

[KittyKat]

Some fish don't respond to high nitrate, some do. It depends on the species, and sometimes individuals. Some aquarium fish have been known to survive at as high as 300-500 ppm, but I personally prefer to keep it around 25 ppm as a maximum.

On the other hand, have you thought about planting the tank? I have had good success with Java moss, Anubias and Vallis with my green terrors and my African plant eaters.

 

[Jackiee]

Yes, actually I was going to eventually plant the tank, I actually just posted a thread a couple days ago about what plants to put in the tank, and java moss and anubias were recommended to me also
I'm hoping to do that soon. Does that help with the nitrates?

 

[KittyKat]

Let me put it this way: I have to do water changes on my planted tank to get nitrates into the tank as they are forever dropping to 0-5 ppm because of the plants.

 

[Jackiee]

Wow!
That's crazy. I guess that's better than struggling to lower them though!
Is it better for the plants to have nitrates?

 

[KittyKat]

That's crazy. I guess that's better than struggling to lower them though!
Is it better for the plants to have nitrates?

Nitrates are (basically) plant food, so the plants need them (among other things) to survive. I doubt you'll have enough plants/stock to drain them, but some plants should reduce them or make them rise not as quickly.