High Nitrate Level

[Ant_Soton]

I had this problem with my last tank quite a bit. What causes it? I don't over feed my fish, i don't leave the light on in the tank after dark and i do a third water change regularly. What can i do to avoid this in future with my new tank? I never had this problem in Zimbabwe!!

 

[coldcazzie]

Nitrate is the end product of the nitrogen cycle, therefore as long as you have fish, ammonia will be converted into nitrite, and nitrite into nitrate, thus leading to rising nitrate levels. The only way you can not have nitrate is to not have fish.

When you say regularly, what do you mean? How regularly?

What fish do you and what tank is it?

Oh, and welcome to the forum

 

[Ant_Soton]

Nitrate is the end product of the nitrogen cycle, therefore as long as you have fish, ammonia will be converted into nitrite, and nitrite into nitrate, thus leading to rising nitrate levels. The only way you can not have nitrate is to not have fish.

When you say regularly, what do you mean? How regularly?

What fish do you and what tank is it?

Oh, and welcome to the forum

The tank i had was a 50 litre hexagonal one, had a few neons a siamese fighter a plec and two corries in it. It was one of those starter kits originally but upgraded the heater and filter pretty much straight away. Had no problems for ages but then my fish just started dying and evey time i had the water tested it was dangerously high in nitrates! I used to do a third water change every 2-3 weeks and feed fish twice a week.

 

[StandbySetting]

What is your nitrate concentration?

 

[coldcazzie]

When you say dangerously high what do you mean? Nitrate does not start having an effect on fish until it is several hundred ppm, and hobby test kits do not test that high...

Or do you mean nitrite?

However, depending on the sp of plec, it could have been that as the plec grew it overwhelmed your filter and that's why the fish died...do you know what plec it was?

 

[XeroTolerance]

Nitrate is not dangerous unless +100ppm. Just do weekly water changes to keep it down.

 

[Ant_Soton]

Nitrate is not dangerous unless +100ppm. Just do weekly water changes to keep it down.

But what i don't get is nothing changed in what i was doing ie feeding, cleaning, number of fish etc and then the problem started !! Change in the water maybe??

 

[XeroTolerance]

Maybe, but it really isn't a problem though. It could just be that your biological filter got a boost from a mini-cycle.

Are you talking about NITRiTES or NITRaTES? Nitrites are extremely poisonous to fish. They will kill them. Did you cycle your tank?

 

[Ant_Soton]

Maybe, but it really isn't a problem though. It could just be that your biological filter got a boost from a mini-cycle.

Are you talking about NITRiTES or NITRaTES? Nitrites are extremely poisonous to fish. They will kill them. Did you cycle your tank?

I had the water tested at the fish shop and they told me it was nitrates and it was likely to have been caused by over feeding !!
I've always just bought a tank and chucked fish in it. Never worried or even knew about cycles etc !! And never had any problems for years !!

 

[XeroTolerance]

First, go and buy a test kit. The API master test kit is a good one. It's highly accurate. The guy at the store probably pronounced it wrong. Also they probably use the stick-dip tests which are highly unreliable. The API Master Test Kit is liquid. Here is a link to see what it looks like.

Petsmart

 

[StandbySetting]

I wouldn't touch an API nitrate test kit with a barge pole personally, they're terrible, the Salifert Nitrate test kit is much more accurate and precise, the API Nitrite and Ammonia kits are accurate enough for what we need them for, though they're not as precise as the Salifert kits.

 

[XeroTolerance]

I wouldn't touch an API nitrate test kit with a barge pole personally, they're terrible, the Salifert Nitrate test kit is much more accurate and precise, the API Nitrite and Ammonia kits are accurate enough for what we need them for, though they're not as precise as the Salifert kits.

I don't have any by my location so I don't really have any experience with the Salifert kits. I heard alot of good things about them though.