Nitrate levels and pregnant female fish

[Jdel27]

Hi guys,

I’m trying to really get my tank perfect to normal for my water changes. Please can somebody help me with NO3 please

I seem to have a high nitrate.
I try not to over feed my tropical fish. Only Once a day.

Ammonia. Is good as I have a test kit attached to window.

I have plants in my tank and have ordered more.
My shrimp are thriving and seem to breed regularly.

I done a water change yesterday and will do another water change today.
to make the levels better.

also can someone tell me if my female fish are pregnant as I’m trying to work out when the fry will be due.

Many thanks
Really appreciate any feed back

 

[seangee]

That nitrate is very high if I am looking at the correct thing. You should do daily water changes to get it down. Ideally 75% but definitely at least 50%. After that you should do 50 - 75% changes weekly.

Please also test your tap water - specifically for nitrate. My tap water (Thames Valley) has 50ppm nitrate which is too high for my fish. No need to panic but its useful to know what we are dealing with before offering advice.

 

[Jdel27]

That nitrate is very high if I am looking at the correct thing. You should do daily water changes to get it down. Ideally 75% but definitely at least 50%. After that you should do 50 - 75% changes weekly.

Please also test your tap water - specifically for nitrate. My tap water (Thames Valley) has 50ppm nitrate which is too high for my fish. No need to panic but its useful to know what we are dealing with before offering advice.

thank you for your reply.
I do a regularly weekly change for my tank of 105litr tank.

could you tell me how you normally manage to lower your nitrate down if you have hard water? Please.

is there another solution if testing water comes out quite hard?
Will do this when i get home been panicking over my tank this morning.
I use a testing stock test.

but any advice would be really appreciated.

also if you know about pregnant fish

 

[seangee]

could you tell me how you normally manage to lower your nitrate down if you have hard water? Please.

Nitrates and hard water are different things. London does have hard water which is perfect for your guppies and platies. Yes the females do look pregnant but still at a fairly early stage. SOmeone who keeps livebearers may be able to be more specific than that .

Make sure that you have plenty of plants for the fry to hide in. Personally I would not do more than that as both platies and guppies are prolific breeders and you will soon have more fish than you have space for. Lots of plants also help keep the nitrates under control. Fast growing floating plants are especially good for this. What you can see in my tank is amazon frogbit but water sprite is another good option.

 

[Jdel27]

I’ve ordered two xxl mother plants for my tank Some tiger nitrate snails for shrimp tank and tank and some extra shrimp (shrimp for shrimp tank)

If my tap water is too much nitrate in my area.
Does that mean I need to do more water change then 10-20% each week.
Maybe then 50-75% water change every week from now on if it is? Would you say that a good idea?

Sorry for all the questions

Thank you and will order some floating plants.

So grateful for your help.

 

[seangee]

Maybe then 50-75% water change every week from now on if it is? Would you say that a good idea?

I change 75% in all my tanks every week. Changing 20% means you are leaving 80% of the "bad stuff" in the tank, so yes - I would definitely recommend this.

 

[Jdel27]

Thank you so much

 

[Byron]

Can you test your tap water for nitrate and let us know the result? We cannot advise without this information, as nitrate in the tap water and nitrate occurring in the aquarium are two very different things and there are different ways to resolve either. And neither is related to the GH as seangee said.

 

[Jdel27]

These are the females now

 

[Jdel27]

Sorry what is GH?

 

[Jdel27]

Hi guys I did two test one for aquarium and one for tap
it came out the same

 

[Jdel27]

Aquarium tint bit darker

 

[Naughts]

Is that tap reading about 80ppm?!
If yes it is not safe drinking water.

 

[Byron]

Sorry what is GH?

General hardness, sometimes also called total hardness. For aquarists, it is the level of dissolved minerals (primarily calcium and magnesium) in water. The less mineral the softer the water, and the more mineral the harder the water. Fish are significantly affected by the GH, to varying degrees and depending upon species. But in all species the fish functions best (the physiology and metabolism) in water that is the same or close to their preference.

 

[Jdel27]

Any advice on what I can do please?