Help! Can't get NitrAtes down....

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adrianne8288

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Hello, I have had a terrible couple of months with my tank. The tank is almost one year old... it was fully cycled (I am a newbie). I got a little behind on the water changes and the PH soared and killed 3 of my 5 fish in the span of 2 weeks. I got the PH into the normal range using a Ph Adjuster and now something is wrong with the Nitrates. It is registering 50ppm. I have done 2 -10 gallon water changes each week for the last 3 weeks and the Nitrates are not changing at all. My local Fish Store suggested a product called de-nitrate which is a gravel that you put in your filters (I used the entire 1 liter can on both of my filter systems like the directions called for) and still no change.

Info:
75 gal tank w/rock
2 filters - Rena and an Eheim
1 Protein Skimmer

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
 
clean out your filters, they tend to produce a lot of nitrate after a while
do much bigger water changes. 25% would be good, perhaps twice a week until the nitrates improve.
do you have any aragonite substrate? it will help buffer the pH
is your test kit old? you can get false readings, try buying a new one.
what is your bioload like (what fish do you have and how big are they?)
 
Something that I noticed one week when doing my checks was that the Nitrates were very high 50 - 60ppm, I always add AmQuel+ to my water, be it the freshwater top ups and to saltwater changes but I couldn't get the Nitrates down below 40ppm regardless of what I did - my leather toadstall had gone into hiding and things were looking dull...

Then I tested the Nitrates in my supply (tap water, both before and after treatment, before treatment Nitrates were nearly 80ppm and after they had dropped to about 50ppm - so my problems were coming from the tap water!

I have since purchased a small RO unit, still add treatment to my pure water but everything looks great and my Nitrates never raise above 20ppm.

Cheers,

Bryce.
 
Hi...for the most part, most of the inserts won't do much about nitrates. They may help, but, production will probably far outweigh absorption. Water changes are the key. Did something die in there?

Sources of nitrates:
1) agree with the filter...that can trap a ton of stuff. Those filters can do such a great job that..well..they do a great job and remove so much stuff that it makes your NO3's go up. My 24G has NO filter sponges, bioballs or ceramic beads. Just filter media and and powerheads
2) agree with the water if you are not using an RO filter. My tap water during summer (fertilizers) has been as high as 20 ppm
3) old filter medium

Anyway, I second 25% water changes every few days. Good luck. SH
 
Thanks for all of the input above- I appreciate it!
I have two fish left (for the question above) a 5 yr old Golden Puffer and a 3 inch Maroon Clown.
I do indeed have an RO system and use that for all of my water changes. I also cleaned the filter media a couple of months ago when I noticed strange ghost like algae floating all though it - I just dumped all of it (Eheim) into a bucket of the tank water and started swishing, rinsing and reseparating the different types of media back into the filter. I am not sure - but it seems like that is when the problems began (maybe I killed something beneficial)?
Regardless - I can keep up the 25 gal water changes for the next couple of weeks, but I have a couple of questions on this:
1) How soon should I expect to see the Nitrates drop?
2) Will doing this much/frequent of water changes throw other things off (PH, Nitrites etc...)?
3) How long could the nitrAtes stay this high before I see problems with my 2 remaining fish who are doing okay in this kind of environment (i.e. is it possible to shock them with changing the NitrAtes so fast)?
4) When I am doing water changes at this point the water coming out of the tank is VERY clean looking and the gravel and sand looks immaculate... is this normal?

Thanks again for all of the input - it is appreciated!
 
1) Nitrate should be significantly lower after a 25% water change. Whether it goes back up again quickly depends on what the problem is. How old is the RO filter? You should do a nitrate test on the water before you put it in the tank to make sure the filter is ok

2) As long as you are using a good quality salt, the pH should be ok.

3) In a fish only tank, nitrate of 50ppm is high, but a lot of fish can cope with these levels. It may make them more prone to other illness however. Lowering the nitrate quickly should not cause problems.

4) Yes, with very frequent water changes, there is little time for detritus to build up.

- when you clean your filters, you shouldn't do it all at the same time. change half at a time, a couple of weeks apart. you will have greatly reduced the biological filtering capacity by changing them both together.
 
Agee with all of fraservet's input. I think people boast more than you'd expect that they have '0' nitrates. My thinking is this and this is just my philosophy, not written in textbooks:

Nitrates in ppm
0-5 Excellent
5-10 Good
10-15 OK but be careful and consider a water change
15-30 caution, corals and inverts may die, fish get stressed

In general, whenever I see the 'yellow' color looking 'orange-ish' on the API test kit, I get concerned and take measures over and above my routine maintenance. SH
 
I just tested my RO water... it is between 10 and 20 ppm.
Should it test 0?
 
for what? nitrates???? it should absolutely be ZERO!!!!! Something is wrong ..either it's old, or the filter isn't working. If you add 10-20 PPM nitrates with each water change, it's going to build up over time.....you'd better look into that filter. SH
 
Wow, Thanks for all of the info and advice.
I ended up changing my RO filters.... and now that water is testing 0 out of the faucet (whew). 2 days ago I did a 15 gallon water change with the "new" RO water.
But I think I did something wrong today.... I got adventuresome and decided to switch out 30 gallons of my 75 gallon aquarium... now my poor puffer is swimming around listlessly and seems to be gasping quite a bit.
Is it because I did too large of a water change and is there anything I can do for him?
I got "adventuresome" because I really wanted to see if it would crank the nitrAtes down.... the nitrAtes has not changed in the least... WHY?
 
I copied this from my thread for you:

Deadly Nitrates, What Do I Do?

In general, zero tolerance for nitrates. SW inverts and fish just don't do well with them...in fact..it's poison. If you start turning up nitrates, you'd better look into it and quickly.

Possible Sources

1) Poor tank maintenance
2) Lapse of/infrequent water changes
3) Overfeeding
4) Overstocking
5) Someone's dead
6) Nitrate 'traps'

Remedies

1) Immediate water change. If you are using filtered tap water (which isn't the best option), check it for nitrates. You may want to switch to distilled or RO. Pure water is still the best and the reduced phosphates may also prevent an algae bloom.
2) Examine your feeding habits....reduce feeding
3) If you used the ceramic beads and/or bioballs, clean them in aquarium water or discontinue them altogether.
4) Clean that sponge. Consider cutting it in half, or discontinuing it or switching it out.
5) Consider adding a refugium with macroalgae to help with nitrates in the tank
6) Return any overstocked livestock to your lfs...they should take them back and its the most humane thing to do.

SH
 
I can think of several reasons why your major water change could cause problems.

1 - when did you make the water up with salt? it is recommended to mix it 24h before you add it to the tank as when it is fresh it can be quite toxic.

2 - what temperature was the water when you added it? with such a large change, even a moderate sudden temperature drop can cause severe stress.

3 - was the s.g. the same as the tank? again a sudden change could cause problems.

I would be inclined to sit tight and see if things settle down. Check all the parameters to make sure there is nothing obvious going on. Doing anything further is likely to add to stress so unless you find a treatable problem I would just wait for now.

In the future I would recommend doing a maximum of 25% water changes unless there is an emergency that needs a larger change. Doing a small change every day for a few days is really better for the fish than a huge change.

As for the nitrates - if you measure them before the water change, then change about 40% of the water with 0ppm, I can absolutely guarantee the nitrates will drop significantly when measured after the water change.
If there is a source of nitrates in the tank - e.g. a large dead fish - then they will go up again reasonably quickly.
If the test showed the same immediately after the water change, try a new test kit.
 
You were right... I probably did 1,2, and 3 wrong.... luckily he made it through the night and seems to be fine today (the clown fish seems to be doing well no matter what - he never had any signs during this whole period of time... the only way I knew things were going wrong in the beginning was in watching the puffer).
As for your comment concerning the 40% water change and how it should drop the nitrAtes - it did not move the color whatsoever. I am so frustrated.
I am going to look at both of the filter systems and make sure there is nothing trapped in them that is causing the nitrAtes to stay high.
But as far as other dead fish go - it is easy to keep up with only 2 left.
I understand what you are saying about the test kit - but the kit is brand new and I even took a water sample to the lfs and they confirmed the high nitrAtes also (and gave me a buffer that I already added to both of the filter systems two weeks ago).
Thanks again for all of the input and I will keep everyone posted.
 

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