Nitrate Level In My Tanks.

[fapjat]

I am new 3 months new to the hobby and already have become addicted to it. I started with a 30 gallon bow front then moved to a 100 gallon about a month and a half ago and I recently received a 10 gallon with filter all for free. This ten gallon is the first take that I have actually had to truly cycle. So I went out and bought the API freshwater test kit.

Here are the results: Both 30 and 100 have 7.6 pH, 0 ammonia and nitrites, and 40-80 mg/L of nitrates.
The 10 gallon has a 7.6 pH, .5 mg/L ammonia and 5 mg/L nitrites, and 20 mg/L nitrates.

I have two questions: For the 30 and 100 gallon, are the nitrate levels considered too high and are those filthy conditions?
For the 10 gallon, I just started cycling it on Saturday, do these levels look good? Seems to me that the good bacteria is being converted from the ammonia and nitrites?

 

[JenCliBee]

I am new 3 months new to the hobby and already have become addicted to it. I started with a 30 gallon bow front then moved to a 100 gallon about a month and a half ago and I recently received a 10 gallon with filter all for free. This ten gallon is the first take that I have actually had to truly cycle. So I went out and bought the API freshwater test kit.

Here are the results: Both 30 and 100 have 7.6 pH, 0 ammonia and nitrites, and 40-80 mg/L of nitrates.
The 10 gallon has a 7.6 pH, .5 mg/L ammonia and 5 mg/L nitrites, and 20 mg/L nitrates.

I have two questions: For the 30 and 100 gallon, are the nitrate levels considered too high and are those filthy conditions?
For the 10 gallon, I just started cycling it on Saturday, do these levels look good? Seems to me that the good bacteria is being converted from the ammonia and nitrites?

nitrates are a bit high for the 30 and 100 u are looking for 20 or less really but theres nothink there 2 majorly worry about when concerning the fishes health

the 10 gallon did u use any mature media ?? if not then levels of nitrite and nitrates after a week is very unusall and say thats ammonia is been converted and so is the nitrite let me know ur secret if its only been running a week lol


jen

 

[fapjat]

I did use some mature media on the ten gallon, so that explains the transformation of the ammonia and nitrites.

As for the Nitrates in my tanks, I imagine more frequent water changes or gravel vacs would do the trick. Also, I currently have fake plants in the aquariums would using real plants improve my water quality drastically?

 

[waterdrop]

A single report of test levels on a tank doesn't necessarily carry any meaning that the members can help you interpret. Each test report is basically 3 or 4 pieces of data (ammonia level, nitrite(NO2) level, pH reading and nitrate(NO3) level) out of dozens or hundreds of bits of data that make up the process of cycling.

On your 10 gallon, are you performing a fishless cycle or a fish-in cycle? If its a fishless cycle, are you using pure household ammonia to feed the bacteria? Are there many live plants in there? ...Lots of questions like that.

Taking a guess, it sounds like maybe you are fishless cycling and have seeded the filter with mature media from your older tanks. If so, then its possible that the colonies from the mature media have lived and helped move you to what we call the "nitrite spike" stage (2nd of two stages) of fishless cycling. But without an idea of what time of day the ammonia was added and how many hours later the readings were taken, we won't have much information about further progress.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[JenCliBee]

I did use some mature media on the ten gallon, so that explains the transformation of the ammonia and nitrites.

As for the Nitrates in my tanks, I imagine more frequent water changes or gravel vacs would do the trick. Also, I currently have fake plants in the aquariums would using real plants improve my water quality drastically?

yeh m8 live plants will help keep the nitrates lower but regular water changes will bring the nitrates down aswell just do a big 50 % water change check levels if still alittle high give it a couple of hours and do another smaller 1 this should bring levels right down

as for the 10 gallon lol yeh that explains your reading

 

[OldMan47]

If your reading on the 30 and 100 for nitrates are much higher than your tap water then it might indicate you need to do larger or more frequent water changes. 40 to 80 ppm is not a real problem for the fish but it shows a value a bit higher that we would expect with big enough and frequent enough water changes. The typical target value is about 20 ppm higher than your tap water. If you have tap water with no nitrates then 20 ppm is achieveable but if you have 40 ppm tap water, you would try to keep the tank under 60 ppm. Like WD said, more details and more complete information would lead to better advice.

 

[Mikaila31]

Hey! You got the same water as me! Nitrate 20ppm(mg/L) out of tap, 40-80ppm in the one tank I've tested. I very rarely test nitrate. Honestly I could care what the nitrate kit says, since I hate trying to match those red colors . Fish act happy and are healthy, colorful, and normally breeding.

One thing that does stump me. Nitrate was 40ppm when the tank was unplanted. I upgraded it to a hi-tech planted tank, pressured co2, high lighting, tons of plants, and EI ferts. Nitrates went up? I figured they should of gone down . My tap still measures at 20ppm.

 

[OldMan47]

Come on Mikaila, you know that EI dosing includes nitrogen. It is in the form of nitrates. That is why it went up with a high tech EI plant regime.

 

[pippoodle]

hi fapjat

how often do you perform water changes and gravel vacs and how much do you change at a time ?

Sarah xx

 

[Mikaila31]

Come on Mikaila, you know that EI dosing includes nitrogen. It is in the form of nitrates. That is why it went up with a high tech EI plant regime.

OH! I knew I was dosing nitrates. Didn't occur to me that the test kit would pick them up. Thought I read that they where two different forms .

 

[fapjat]

I never thought to check the nitrates out of the tap. I will do that tomorrow!

As for tank upkeep, I gravel vac and do a 25% change every two weeks for 100 and 30. I am aware that I need to do this weekly with possibly greater water changes, but I do as much my time permits. The tank looks clear and algae build up is minimal. I believe the largest problem I have is I tend to have a heavy hand when I feed the fish.

I would just like to say how great it is that so many people actively try to answer questions for people who are obviously inferior fish keepers. The only downfall to this forum is that you cannot have hands on help to help dissect problems and be lead through the processes involved. I personally do not associate with anybody that have fish beyond a goldfish setup, therefore the learning curve is my own. I try not to blabber on to the LFS associates.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, you don't want to have a "heavy hand" when it comes to feeding tropical fish. The fish are cold-blooded and have behaviours and body processes very different from mammals like us and our dogs and cats! We and our warm pets have a need to keep our body temperatures up and have a different association with food.

Fish in natural situations usually have food supplies that are pretty scarce. They scavange all day for very small bits of food found after long intervals. As such, our pet fish will always behave as if they are crazy to have food, even when they've had more than enough (at least that's the general way I would attempt to describe it!)

Many aquarists with healthy stockings will feed every other day or even every third day. This is not to say one can't feed very lightly once a day, but at least skipping a day every now and then is not a bad thing. And feeding too much each day, or worse, more than once a day is a sure way to overfeed the fish and begin the process of polluting the tank.

If you have good tap water conditions, a good weekly gravel clean accompanied with as much as a 50% water change is a great way for a beginner to have good maintenance. Knowing your tap water parameters though, is a prerequisite before choosing the percentage size of your water changes.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[drobbyb]

I just wanted to expand a bit on waterdrop's comments on feeding. WD is absolutely correct when it comes to feeding but WD left off one aspect of feeding when it comes to fry. Fry, depending on their stage of development, need to be fed more than once a day. If your fry are newly hatched, 3 times a day is sufficient. If they look like fish then twice a day is good until they are about a month and a half to two months old.

Buf for all intents and purposes, a light once a day feeding is best for young fish and every other day for older fish.