High Nitrates in Planted Tank

[Heathersimn]

I’ve been loosing some very nice fish due to high nitrates in one of my aquariums. I have been doing 30 percent water changes every day and I added a ton more aquatic plants and added more pothos. My nitrates are not going down it’s so frustrating! 160 ppm!!! I can’t do huge water changes due to ph differences because the tank is very acidic.

 

[seangee]

What are the nitrates in your tap water?
Have you re-tested the pH in the tank? If you have been changing 30% per day it may well be moving closer to your tap water - in fact it should be unless there is something in the tank to make it more acidic.

 

[Heathersimn]

My nitrates in my tap water are at 0.?

 

[Heathersimn]

And my ph is at 6.0 to 6.4. Literally no wood in the tank. It’s a rock and plant set up for my cichlids.

 

[seangee]

And my ph is at 6.0 to 6.4. Literally no wood in the tank. It’s a rock and plant set up for my cichlids.

And what is the pH of your tap water?
I have 3 tanks with a pH lower than 5.5 (I can't measure it as its too low). I do 75% changes in these tanks every week.
Many water companies add stuff to the water to temporaily raise the pH as acidic water corrodes pipes. If this is the case your tap water's pH will come back down within 24 hours.

 

[FFGuest6357]

In order to help you get answers, most people here will need more information.

you’ll need to provide more information on ammonia, nitrites, ph (tap and tank water), gh, kh, temperatures. What’s your tank size? What do you have stocked in it?

what do you use to de-chlorinate your water? Etc.

also, I’m rusty on the chemistry, but if your tank and tap water are varying that much in ph, is sounds like an imbalance. The rocks you have, are they store bought? Or did you find them outside? If the rocks aren’t chemically inert, they may alter your ph. Again, I’m not 100% sure on the chemistry of it, but these are some of the details you may need to give here so that others can help you solve the problem.

good luck, and I’ll keep an eye out for more replies...
Edit: typos

 

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

What is the nitrite level?
Nitrate test kits read nitrite as nitrate and can give you a false reading. If you have a high nitrite, you will have a very high nitrate reading even though there might not be any nitrate in the water. The nitrate test kit simply reads it as high due to the nitrite.

How long has the tank been set up for?

Do you gravel clean the substrate when you do a water change?

How long has the filter been set up for?
How often do you clean the filter?
How do you clean the filter?

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If the tap water has a higher pH than the tank water, fill up some plastic containers with tap water and aerate them over night. See if the pH comes down. If it does, you can then dechlorinate that water and use it to do bigger water changes on the tank.

 

[FFGuest6357]

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If the tap water has a higher pH than the tank water, fill up some plastic containers with tap water and aerate them over night. See if the pH comes down. If it does, you can then dechlorinate that water and use it to do bigger water changes on the tank.

Would you be able to explain why the ph would drop overnight while being aerated?

I haven’t heard of this concept before...

 

[Colin_T]

Would you be able to explain why the ph would drop overnight while being aerated?

Tap water is under pressure in the water pipes and this can force carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen (N) or oxygen (O2) gas out of the water. These gases don't always come out and sometimes don't come out evenly, so you might lose some of the CO2 but keep the nitrogen and or oxygen.

Removing CO2 causes the pH to rise. Adding CO2 causes the pH to drop.

If you aerate the water for 24 hours, the gases get back into the water in their correct amounts and this can change the pH. It also makes the water safer for the fish because the gases dissolved in the water are at their correct levels.

Water companies also add buffers to the water to keep the pH above 7.0 so the chlorine or chloramine lasts longer and does less damage to the water pipes. Some of these buffers break down/ get neutralised/ precipitate out (sorry can't think of the word) when exposed to air and this can change the pH.

The pH doesn't always change and sometimes it might only change a bit (drop from 8.0 to 7.6). But it's always worth checking regularly to make sure the water company hasn't done something different to the water.

 

[FFGuest6357]

Tap water is under pressure in the water pipes and this can force carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen (N) or oxygen (O2) gas out of the water. These gases don't always come out and sometimes don't come out evenly, so you might lose some of the CO2 but keep the nitrogen and or oxygen.

Removing CO2 causes the pH to rise. Adding CO2 causes the pH to drop.

If you aerate the water for 24 hours, the gases get back into the water in their correct amounts and this can change the pH. It also makes the water safer for the fish because the gases dissolved in the water are at their correct levels.

Water companies also add buffers to the water to keep the pH above 7.0 so the chlorine or chloramine lasts longer and does less damage to the water pipes. Some of these buffers break down/ get neutralised/ precipitate out (sorry can't think of the word) when exposed to air and this can change the pH.

The pH doesn't always change and sometimes it might only change a bit (drop from 8.0 to 7.6). But it's always worth checking regularly to make sure the water company hasn't done something different to the water.

that’s great, thanks for that. I’m already checking my tap water once a month, so far so good.

 

[Essjay]

When testing the pH of tap water, we should test a sample of freshly run tap water and then leave a glass of water to stand overnight and test it again. It is common to find they are different, sometimes quite a lot different.

 

[FFGuest6357]

When testing the pH of tap water, we should test a sample of freshly run tap water and then leave a glass of water to stand overnight and test it again. It is common to find they are different, sometimes quite a lot different.

I will do that this weekend, I’ve often tested both the tank and tap (fresh), side by side, and every time they are extremely close, like if there’s a difference it’s very minuscule