Help Urgently!

[fatdad]

Ok once my tank cycled I introduced 8 tiger barbs checked water tonight Nitrate was 80!!!!!!! did 10% water change and it went down to 20 still to high cant do any more changes as I cant get any more water conditioner till tomorrow and by then I rekon I am going to have dead tiger barbs any suggestions .
Why is the nitrate rising!!!!!!!!!

 

[Liam]

If its nitrate and not nitrite then there is nothing to worry about. A 10% water change couldn’t dilute nitrate from 80 to 20, I mean three quarters of the nitrate couldn’t be in just 10% of the water, nitrate test kits are hard to get accurate results from. Don’t worry too much about nitrate, regular weekly 20%-30% water changes with a normal fish load are fine.
Really there is nothing to be concerned about, even if the reading was 100 nitrate there would be no short term problems for the fish.

 

[Christine1014]

No worries; 20 is a perfectly acceptable reading. You'll always have nitrate in your tank, unless you have a heavily planted tank, in which case the plants will consume it. But your fish produce ammonia, which is processed by nitrites, which is processed by nitrates, which is processed by -- nothing. Except water changes! Most fishkeepers agree that 40 or lower is fine. 80 probably won't cause overnight death. (Though I do find it odd that just a 10% water change dropped your nitrates more than 50 percent. Makes me think maybe an extra drop of the test solution got in the test tube the first time or something. (you're not using those dip strips are you? They're horribly inaccurate for nitrate). Anyway, the best way to keep the nitrates down is to really dig around well in the gravel when you're doing your gravel vac / water change. But if you've got your nitrates down to 20 anyway, you've got nothing to worry about. Your tiger barbs will greet you happily in the morning.

EDIT: Liam - ah, you beat me! Well, great minds think alike, right?

 

[ArauraDiscus]

I wish I could keep my nitrates to 20 ppms consitantly. Ridiculously annoying tap water levels.

 

[vinylman]

Ok once my tank cycled I introduced 8 tiger barbs checked water tonight Nitrate was 80!!!!!!! did 10% water change and it went down to 20 still to high cant do any more changes as I cant get any more water conditioner till tomorrow and by then I rekon I am going to have dead tiger barbs any suggestions .
Why is the nitrate rising!!!!!!!!!

Once the tank had cycled, did you do a large (80/90%) water change before adding the first fish?.