Quickly Getting Nitrates Down?

[Creature Seeker]

Hello,

My Nitrates are slightly high and I would like to reduce them before the weekend as I have some new fish that I ordered ready to pick up.

I did order a bottle of Amquel+ but don't think I'll use it now after reading about the various comments on here.

Is there any other quick way to reduce the Nitrate. I have done weekly 25% water changes resulting in no great change yet my tap water does have less Nitrate content.

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[KimA]

Hi,

What are your nitrates at the moment?

 

[Creature Seeker]

Can't tell exactly as my chart isn't that clear between the colours, but I think it's edging over 50. Tank has been set up for well over 5 years.

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[KimA]

What fish do you have in the tank at the moment, and what size is the tank?

Overfeeding can increase nitrates (as can overstocking) - how often are you feeding the fish?

I had a problem with nitrates - changed over to live plants, and am also using Seachem's Purigen in the filter, so far so good.

Kim

p.s. know that live plants really help to reduce nitrates

 

[Cheffi]

As far as I know there's 3 ways to do it. First water changes, as many as it takes to get the nitrates down or plants or the chemical way. I'd opt for water changes if you don't want to use plants.

 

[Creature Seeker]

The tank is 100 litres.

It has:

2 Clown Loaches
2 Apollo Sharks
1 Humbug Catfish
1 Upsidedown Fish
1 Pitbull Pleco
1 Brown African Knife Fish
1 Marbled Headstander

They are all moving to a larger 180 litre tank when I get it setup.

I did a 25% water change last Wednesday and again yesterday (Monday), but no greta difference. I can't really get live plants and my headstander eats them, also I heard they arn't very effective unless they are specific rapid growing plants.

Would Amquel + not work at all?

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[Inchworm]

Hi Creature Seeker

It all depends on the size of your fish and the amount of waste they produce. Since you have some potentially large fish, the amount of beneficial bacteria inhabiting your filter and tank might just be enough to keep the nitrate level high. It's the natural end result of their consumption of ammonia.

Adding more fish at this time will only make the problem worse.

 

[OohFeeshy]

Maybe try mixing half RO water with half tap water when you do water changes?

 

[Creature Seeker]

I think the initial problem started because my undergravel filter was getting blocked with gravel so I put some very fine mesh underneath it which I think must have reduced the filter power or made larger pollutants harder to break down as they couldn't get through the mesh.

I have sorted this now but still need to get the Nitrate down.

If I mix RO water with tap water do I need to add anything else?

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[Inchworm]

Hi Creature Seeker

You will still have to add enough dechlorinator to remove the chlorine or chloramine in your tap water.

 

[Creature Seeker]

Hi Creature Seeker

You will still have to add enough dechlorinator to remove the chlorine or chloramine in your tap water.

Thanks Inchworm.

Is that all? I don't need to add anything that the RO filter takes away (I'm guessing there's enough in the tap water)

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