# Nitrate's!!!!!



## DanieO (Mar 28, 2016)

Hey everyone. I have been testing my parameters for about 2 week's every 2-3 days. My ammonia 0, nitrite 0 and my nitrate's the first day was 10-20 and then 20-40 and now currently 80-160. I don't know what to do. Please please help.


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## Aaron S (Apr 4, 2015)

What to do? Change the water, that is the only option.

To figure out if something crazy is happening please tell us how large your tank is and how many/what size fish you have.

One thing could be that you have a gravel bottom tank with a bunch of fish poop in the gravel that is not getting cleaned.


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## dledinger (Mar 20, 2013)

Agree, change water. If it climbs from 20 to 80+ in less than a week, once a week may not be enough.


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## DanieO (Mar 28, 2016)

Hey, I have a 40B tank(36x18x18) aragonite sand substrate and 10 juvies al mbuna and 1 juvenile golden algae eater.1 H.O.B filter, 1 submersible filter and 2heaters. Also another problem, I think I have some algae bloom going on in my tank.
I also do 2 10% water changes every week. Today I started to put my tank light of.


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## dledinger (Mar 20, 2013)

High nitrates can contribute to your algae bloom. Keeping the light off won't hurt, however. Mbuna love to graze on it....so I wouldn't worry about for any reason other than aesthetics.

10% water changes, even at 2x a week, are probably no where near enough. And as your fish grow the requirement is only going to increase. I would ramp the changes up by increasing to 20, 30, then 50%. I haven't done less than a 50% water change on a tank in years, and I'm usually doing 75% or more. The more water you change, and the more frequently you do so, the less the change in parameters and water condition your fish experience.

The only thing I wouldn't do is go from 10% changes to 50% overnight. Rapidly changing parameters is often blamed for sudden illnesses.


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## Aaron S (Apr 4, 2015)

I agree with DL. the algae is almost certainly due to the nitrate levels. I do ~60% water changes once a week right now.

However that rate of change in nitrates is still much higher than I would expect. I temporarily have 15 yellow lab juvies at 1.5inches in a 20L and the nitrates rise less than half that fast. I would start looking for the poop that you are not cleaning up. With sand substrate it probably wont be there. Check for how dirty the HOB is in the filter pad or just in the bottom of the bucket. I assume a submersible filter is a sponge filter - if it is then rinse out that sponge. Lift up decorations if its possible to have something in/under them.


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## BillD (May 17, 2005)

The rise does seem rather steep for the short time span. Definitely the 10% water change twice weekly is insufficient. You would be better with one 20%, but, more would be better, as already has been mentioned. The one thing that is seldom mentioned in these discussions, is the removal of solid wastes before they can break down. This applies whether on the bottom of the tank or in the filter (still in the tank).Removing solids before they break down will slow the rise of nitrates.


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## dusanmal (Jan 24, 2016)

My solution in a similar setup with similar issue. I have 50gal tank, aragonite substrate, 19 mostly Mbuna of varying sizes (intentionally overcrowding for aggression reduction that works greatly, no conflicts within or between species, rusties an yellow labs regularly reproducing). Overfiltering, modified Penguin 350 with poret sponges and amocarb media plus Eheim 2215 and uv filter during daytime. No issues, 0 ammonia and nitrites. PH 8-8.2. While doing once per week 25% water changes and with just two mostly eaten anubias plants I couldn't cut nitrates below 40-60. I increased water changes to twice a week 25% each to have it bounce 20-40. I replaced eaten anubias with 5 New ones and that did a trick in more ways than one. Now nitrates are 10-20 and while still tearing some anubias, plants in this numbers seem to hold their own and thrive.
Despite high nitrates I did not have algae issues. I attribute that to two ever-eating bristlenose Plecos and other catfish (during this time I replaced original pair of grown Pictus cats with 3 juvenile lucipinnis) and 3 olive nerite snails. All of these but particularly Plecos are very active all the time.


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## DanieO (Mar 28, 2016)

Ok so I followed everyone's advice and did 20-30% water changes every 2-3 days. Before I did the water change today I checked my nitrate's again and it's still between 80-160. I cleaned my filters and everything. Would it help if I put a few mystery snails in there?


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## dledinger (Mar 20, 2013)

DanieO said:


> Ok so I followed everyone's advice and did 20-30% water changes every 2-3 days.


It's only been 5 days, you need to keep going increasing quantity, frequency or both.

Ultimately you have to get nitrates out faster than you're producing them. If you're nitrates are the same (roughly the same, can't tell when you're off the scale) then you're only maintaining.

The snails won't help. They'll eat the algae that consumes nitrogenous waste and make it worse (but not measurably).


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## dledinger (Mar 20, 2013)

DanieO said:


> I have been testing my parameters for about 2 week's every 2-3 days. My ammonia 0, nitrite 0 and my nitrate's the first day was 10-20 and then 20-40 and now currently 80-160.


I wanted to add to above since others were commenting that your nitrates rose sharply. Indeed they did. That said, I'm not sure any of us are really clear on the time frame that produced these results.

I read the above to indicate that at the start of 2 weeks your nitrates were at 10-20, somewhere in the middle they reached 20-40, and after a full two weeks of testing they reached 80-160. This would be a pretty quick increase.

I think others took this to mean that over the course of 3 tests, spread 2-3 days each, the nitrates rose from 10-20 to 80-160. That'd be a total of 4-6 days to produce off the scale nitrates. That would be an incredibly quick increase.

If you can clarify the duration of testing that produced these results it will likely bring you a better and more consistent response.


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## DanieO (Mar 28, 2016)

Yes sorry. I started the testing about a month ago. That's when I bought my test kit (API test master)


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## dledinger (Mar 20, 2013)

Ok. If they rose from 10-20 to 80-160 over the course of several weeks, then I'd say that's normal and just indicates that your water change schedule (the original one of 10% 2X a week) isn't enough.


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## DanieO (Mar 28, 2016)

Ok. So do you think I should do more like a 50% water change maybe every 3 days?


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## dledinger (Mar 20, 2013)

If I were in your shoes I would probably start today doing 40-50% every 2 days until the nitrates are dropped to 10-20ppm. I'd be shocked if there wasn't a huge improvement after doing that 3 times, but if there isn't you'll need to do it daily.

Once you get it down to 10-20ppm I'd start doing one large water change per week, probably 60-70%, and see how that works to keep the nitrates low.


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## Tank boss (Aug 4, 2016)

Maybe you need better filtration. id replace the HOB and internal with 2 canister filters also try using chemipure elite or purigen, both are good at keeping nitrates in check and make your water absolutely crystal clear!


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

Increased filtration will not remove nitrates. Chemical media might, but then you are disguising your problem instead of figuring out the cause and solving it. Changing water is always the ideal way to remove nitrates unless your tap water has more nitrates than your tank.


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## jackiedoss (Jul 9, 2016)

The replies are interesting, because I read that tap water can be high in nitrates to begin with. That's why I figured my nitrates are still so high (way high) , even though I just did a huge water change, ... probably over 50%...just yesterday, after doing 10% changes weekly for the past several weeks. I did the water change thinking that it would help get the nitrates down (along with several other things I did, including getting a new filter because mine died). ... but the nitrates are still high.

I bought some Purigen, because I read somewhere that it's the BEST thing to get the nitrates down. I just put it in the filter, and I'll let you guys know if it helps. I'm also going to test my tap water and see how high the nitrates are to begin with. I really thought that the new filter would make a huge difference, because my pump has been slowly dying (yes, I used some old biologicals so there'd be some good bacteria in the filter)... but the fish seem more distressed tonight than they were yesterday.

I actually wonder if all of the stirring things up caused a lot of waste to come from under the sand. I noticed a lot more waste than usual after vacuuming and setting the new filter up!


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## mbargas (Apr 19, 2009)

Hornwort and bright lighting can function as a nitrate sponge. Some cichlids may eat it though. If they eat it faster than it grows you could keep the hornwort in an overflow tank that will recirculate to the main tank. Other options are water lettuce and other floaters, but they will need intense lighting.


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

But still...all of this should only be necessary if you have nitrates in your tap water...which is not a good thing.

Yes if you stir up waste you will get nitrates. But this tells you your substrate needed cleaning. Once it is clean, nitrates should be generated only by fish waste and weekly 50% water changes should be able to keep you under 20ppm unless your tank is overstocked.


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## mbargas (Apr 19, 2009)

https://www.theaquariumwiki.com/Plants_ ... Filtration


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## BlueSunshine (Jul 13, 2014)

DanieO said:


> Yes sorry. I started the testing about a month ago. That's when I bought my test kit (API test master)


How were your fish acting before you purchased the test kit?


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