Unable To Reduce Nitrates!

[aude52]

On friday night i checked my nitrates and they were at 40ppm roughly, as it hard to judge on them colour charts. So it was due a water change anyway and i did a 50% change. I left it till today and rechecked it and its STILL at 40ppm!! i cannot understand this. Everything else is fine. I only feed every other day. This week alone i have lost 1 discus, 1 ghost fish, 1 pleco. I do not understand what is going on. I have a dwarf gourami that seems to have swim bladder and it has a slight lump on its side and is floating at the top of the tank on its side. I have trying treating it with magnesium sulphate bath (epsom salts) and it hasnt sorted it. What do i do??? please help

 

[Always Learning]

Have you tested the nitrates in your tap water?

Usual questions when something like this happens.. re the deaths are. What tank size/filteration. Have you added anything recently or done anything major to the tank. Full stock list. Temperature, etc etc.. This will give people a good base to work on, or may even point out the obvious places to look first.

 

[elisew]

Have you tested your water straight from the tap?

Mine tests at 40 from the tap

 

[aude52]

ok, i checked the tap water and its 0 - zero

tank size 180ltr
Filter fluval 4+
11 neons, 3 discus, 3 mollies, 2 angel fish, red tail shark, 2 dwarf gourmai's (one swim bladder), 6 guppies, 1 siamese male

only added swim bladder treatment but i did that BEFORE friday so the 50% should have removed most of it

temperature 26c

plz help

 

[scaeriefaerie666]

mopani bogwood is good for reducing nitrates - as are live plants. You could try putting a carbon sack in there, but its nitrites that are really dangerous so i wouldn't worry yourself too much. Nitrates is just waste. Do you gravel Vac?
xxx

 

[ZoddyZod]

40ppm nitrates is perfectly fine. No need to panic.

as elisew said, some people have that reading straight out of their tap (myself included). That level is very very very unlikely to be causing any of your fish deaths.

 

[Squidward]

mopani bogwood is good for reducing nitrates - as are live plants. You could try putting a carbon sack in there, but its nitrites that are really dangerous so i wouldn't worry yourself too much. Nitrates is just waste. Do you gravel Vac?
xxx

I didn't know that mopani wood reduces nitrates?
How so?

 

[fluttermoth]

Mopani wood doesn't reduce nitrates, nor will carbon. Plants will a little, but 40ppm is nothing to worry about anyway, unless you have very sensitive fish like rams or discus.

 

[Squidward]

Mopani wood doesn't reduce nitrates, nor will carbon. Plants will a little, but 40ppm is nothing to worry about anyway, unless you have very sensitive fish like rams or discus.

Didn't think so
I have loads of wood in my tank and it has no effect on the Nitrates. Best way to reduce - plenty of water changes.