High nitrates / grvel depth

[QueenBee]

Hi

As I've posted in two other threads, I've discovered my tap water is high in Nitrates. (I've had great suggestions as to how to remedy that).

Can the level of gravel in my tank influence the nitrate levels? If so, Am I better to have shallow or deep gravel in my tank?

Currently I have quite shallow amount - maybe 2cm max. It's a blue planet160L tank, second hand, kept the gravel and bio media. In hindsight. I probably should have cleaned the gravel, because I think the pre existing bacteria in that hasn't helped my nitrate levels

Would it help if I added more gravel to my tank? Or do I need to do more frequent cleaning of the gravel? I've noticed when I clean the gravel, it does stir things up and I get trace amounts of ammonia and nitrates the next day, but resolve another day after that.

I've just added 4 fish (glass blood fins) to it yesterday, ammonia and nitrite levels are zero, nitrate high - close to 80 (my tap water sits around 40)

 

[Essjay]

Unless you have live plants, you need to clean the gravel at every water change. Fish poop, uneaten food etc work their way down into the gravel and decompose to make ammonia which the bacteria turn into nitrite then nitrate. With live plants, avoid the areas where there are roots and clean between the plants.
The filter media also needs cleaning regularly as the goo that builds up (poop & food again) also contributes to the nitrate level in a tank.

If your nitrate level is so much higher than your tap nitrate, either you have too many fish; you are overfeeding the fish; insufficient water changes (not often enough, not big enough or both) or you are not cleaning the gravel/filter adequately. Have a think about what it could be.

 

[QueenBee]

Unless you have live plants, you need to clean the gravel at every water change. Fish poop, uneaten food etc work their way down into the gravel and decompose to make ammonia which the bacteria turn into nitrite then nitrate. With live plants, avoid the areas where there are roots and clean between the plants.
The filter media also needs cleaning regularly as the goo that builds up (poop & food again) also contributes to the nitrate level in a tank.

If your nitrate level is so much higher than your tap nitrate, either you have too many fish; you are overfeeding the fish; insufficient water changes (not often enough, not big enough or both) or you are not cleaning the gravel/filter adequately. Have a think about what it could be.

There is only 4 fish in a 160L tank, so def not too many. The fish have only been in there since yesterday.

Water changes - - its adding more nitrates into the water, so what I've been doing is waiting until the level of nitrates in the tank is higher than the level of nitrates in the tap water ... my other tanks it takes a few days for the nitrates to get higher; They are small tanks (37L and 65L), and the plan is to move the fish from there into the bigger tank; its getting the nitrates lower in teh big tank first so i can move them in there safely. well, safer, given there's nitrates all over the place (my tap water is sitting at around 40 at the moment

Likely its either the bio media or gravel or both .. they're second hand, ie came with the tank, which I've had set up for just over a week.

I'm a bit nervous to get new bio media - i know it'll need to be replaced at some stage anyway -My understanding is im better to change some of it rather than all of it at once ... but Im worried getting new ones will also get rid of the good bacteria that work on the ammonia and nitrites?

Is it safe to take out the gravel and thoroughly clean it and put it back? I've cleaned the gravel twice in the past 2 days - the first time it seemed to stir things up, i had trace ammonia and nitrite levels the following day.... don't know if its making a difference yet.

Lesson learned with the gravel, i was probably better to thoroughly clean it before using it in the tank. Id not cleaned it thinking the bacteria in it would help kick start the nitrogen cycle, but maybe the bio media would have been enough