Help Nitrate Still High

[bravehart]

What to do? The tank is now cycled and we have done a big water change, but Nitrate is still 40 ppm!

 

[Truck]

40ppm isn't even high.

 

[mattlee]

do a test on your tap water and you may find levels of nitrate there and unless you have a planted tank it will never drop below this level, my tap is 10ppm nitrate.
as Truck says 40 isnt anything to worry about though

 

[bravehart]

40ppm isn't even high.

Perfect...I guess I was going by association with Nitrite and Ammonia at 5ppm. Great that means we get fish today...I know one young lady is going to be very excited.

Tim

 

[mattlee]

40ppm isn't even high.

Perfect...I guess I was going by association with Nitrite and Ammonia at 5ppm. Great that means we get fish today...I know one young lady is going to be very excited.

Tim

if your nitrite and ammonia readings are above 0 then your tank isnt ready for fish yet..... especially if its at 5ppm

 

[bravehart]

40ppm isn't even high.

Perfect...I guess I was going by association with Nitrite and Ammonia at 5ppm. Great that means we get fish today...I know one young lady is going to be very excited.

Tim

if your nitrite and ammonia readings are above 0 then your tank isnt ready for fish yet..... especially if its at 5ppm

you are misunderstanding me Matlee. Ammonia and Nitrite are 0. What I was saying is that because Nitrite and Ammonia are high at 5ppm I thought 40 ppm for Nitarte must be high too. LOL.

Tim

 

[mattlee]

40ppm isn't even high.

Perfect...I guess I was going by association with Nitrite and Ammonia at 5ppm. Great that means we get fish today...I know one young lady is going to be very excited.

Tim

if your nitrite and ammonia readings are above 0 then your tank isnt ready for fish yet..... especially if its at 5ppm

you are misunderstanding me Matlee. Ammonia and Nitrite are 0. What I was saying is that because Nitrite and Ammonia are high at 5ppm I thought 40 ppm for Nitarte must be high too. LOL.

Tim

ok sorry Tim but just have to check.... dont worry about nitrates at 40ppm, even at this ppm with weekly water changes it shouldnt get much higher

 

[waterdrop]

Yeah, NO3 at 15 to 20ppm above tap water level is quite good if it holds steady but even higher levels can be fine too as long as your maintenance routine holds them steady. In a tank that has just finished a fishless cycle it can take several large water changes to get the nitrate(NO3) level down as it tends to hang out in the substrate and filter.

So you've passed your qualifying week? That's great, and the fish appear to be available for your first stocking?

~~waterdrop~~

 

[bravehart]

Yeah, NO3 at 15 to 20ppm above tap water level is quite good if it holds steady but even higher levels can be fine too as long as your maintenance routine holds them steady. In a tank that has just finished a fishless cycle it can take several large water changes to get the nitrate(NO3) level down as it tends to hang out in the substrate and filter.

So you've passed your qualifying week? That's great, and the fish appear to be available for your first stocking?

~~waterdrop~~

Hi waterdrop...oops what do you mean by qualifying week?

 

[Gilli]

As long as you do a 30% water change every week your nitrates shouldnt be a problem. Also adding live plants is helpful as they use it up.

 

[OldMan47]

The qualifying week is a simple concept Bravehart. You get your tank cycled but before you ad any fish, you watch the tank for a week to make sure that you have not jumped the gun by calling it cycled. You add your ammonia daily and make sure you keep showing zero ammonia and nitrites at the 12 hour mark each day. If you go without showing any ammonia or nitrites, you have "qualified" your cycle and it is time to get some fish.

 

[Assaye]

Yep, as OldMan said, it's like a testing phase to make sure you really have got zero ammonia and nitrites and it wasn't just a few fluke readings.

 

[bravehart]

The qualifying week is a simple concept Bravehart. You get your tank cycled but before you ad any fish, you watch the tank for a week to make sure that you have not jumped the gun by calling it cycled. You add your ammonia daily and make sure you keep showing zero ammonia and nitrites at the 12 hour mark each day. If you go without showing any ammonia or nitrites, you have "qualified" your cycle and it is time to get some fish.

OK thanks....it might be an idea to amend the fishless cycle article to include something about a qualifying week and to give some expectation for what Nitrate level is acceptable. For a newbie like myself, it seems to end rather abruptly. I'm not having a go, as I think the information provided on this site is excellent, merely a suggestion. Also it might be good to include something about if ammonia and nitrite spike after adding fish to do partial water changes until it gets back to zero. That was not something I was aware of. I'm sure all of this information is around, but I think it would be better if it could be thrown in there in the cycling posts so that everybody reads it and knows what to expect.

Tim

 

[OldMan47]

I quite agree with you Bravehart. It has been years since I actually read those threads myself, so a fine point like that would be un-noticed by me. I have a good feel for what makes a good cycle, as I am sure WD does, and I just never go back to actually read the threads there. Thanks again for alerting me top something that may need some of my attention.

 

[waterdrop]

I quite agree with you Bravehart. It has been years since I actually read those threads myself, so a fine point like that would be un-noticed by me. I have a good feel for what makes a good cycle, as I am sure WD does, and I just never go back to actually read the threads there. Thanks again for alerting me top something that may need some of my attention.

Yes, when I think of RDD's fishless cycling article I think of it as the 80 or 90% base, with a number of other RDD "facts and tips" added on in other threads he wrote that are not in the article at all and then I take all that RDD combined baseline and add to it a bunch of stuff that MW,BTT,rabbut, yourself and I have been manually adding on for a year or two (hope you could follow that OM.) Despite all that I don't feel ready to say we should attempt a new one yet, as one of the big problems with FLC instructional articles is the trade-off between completeness vs. simplicity-for-beginners. In fact, that's usually a huge writing problem for all our reference articles I feel. WD