Help Nitrate Level Gone Through The Roof

[mr_flash]

Had a tank setup now for a few months and everything has been perfect.

PH- 7
Nitrate 0.3

Have also been doing a water change every 2 weeks and all been ok. Did usual change last week and have added a couple more fish and 3 ADF's

Found some of the fish this morning gulping at the top of the the tank so i did a nitrate test and it was 3.3

I have just changed 10% of the water. Do i need to do anything else, will the nitrate recover or will i end up losing fish

Cheers

 

[alexdallimore]

Do you mean nitrite?

On a mature tank it should be

Amonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate This should be below 40. But the lower the better 40 is the tops that you would want it to get to.

Amonia and Nitrite are what are harmful to fish until bacteria change it to Nitrate. Nitrate will just start stressing the fish and making them ill gradually if the levels creep up. Regular water changes will stop it creeping up. The more fish you stock the quicker it will get to its limit so water changes become more frequent.

I change 25-35% of my water weekly to keep my tank healthy. Make sure you use water treatments when changing your water

 

[zoekin8yg]

I would say that you have added too many new inhabitants at the same time and your tank is going through a minicycle

 

[justandy333]

Id make more regular water changes. About 30% a week keeps my fish happy. Normally tap water does have a small amount of nitrates in it already so if the problem is very serious then id do a couple of RO (reverse osmosis) water changes. RO water is avaliable from a good aquarium store and usually cost around 50p per gallon. RO water is devoid of any nitrates or cholorine or chloramines, So no dechlorinator is nessessary. But i only do that if the problem is very bad.

Its also i good idea to keep ur eye on ammonia levels and nitrite levels. (Those wernt mentioned in your post)
Good luck with whatever you do.

 

[BigIan]

Nitrate isn`t really a problem,
What are your other stats?

 

[xoedusk]

mr_flash, when you say nitrate, do you mean nitrite?

Do daily water changes of 15% I'd say. Please post all tank stats.

 

[mr_flash]

Sorry i miss spelt Nitrite. I did a 50% water change and removed the plants that looked on there last legs

Tank seem to have recoverd over the last couple of day i i only lost 1 neon tetra.

Stats as of 10min ago are

PH = 6.5
Nitrite = <0.3
Co2 = 40

I have noticed that the catfish has got white spot now so have bought some stuff to treat that

 

[BigIan]

the white spot will have been caused by the stress of the nitrie readings,
do some partial water changes over the next few days and you should be fine.

sounds like you had a mini cycle, did you clean out your filter? if so how did you do it?

 

[mr_flash]

My tank has a impeller with 2 plates under the gravel, i cleaned out the impeller tube and head using treated tap water