CICHLA Tanks water and filtration Nitrates!!!

joshs801

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
May 7, 2010
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utah
Okay so here it is after trying everything myself and listening to the lfs i am going to reach out to you all...

I have three tanks ( 210g, 150g, 350g, ) and all are reading the same in high nitrates around 60-80 ppm i have done 75% (every sunday) water changes on my 210 and have added more live bacteria, Have added prime.. The seachems nitrate remover ... I am about at my wits ends with this, I normally do 50% every sunday and then bumped it up to tuesday 25% thursday 25% and sunday 50% mind you i am not a noobie and did not do this over just one week this has been over 2 months now and still cant get these nitrates under control.
Everything else on the test kit ammonia, nitrites, read 0 >>

And also i am trying to get these to spawn for me have two projects going

Anyone have any suggestions or hints that may help or something i can buy!!!! to take care of this problem ?

And also any input on breeding and setting the mood so to say to get these kicking some f1's
 

Undertheradar

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Mar 22, 2011
154
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0
oxford england
I'm having similar issue not quite as high as my water has 10 ppm to start wit and increased phosphates. I've been researching refugiums and algae scrubbers on this site seems to have good positive out come in most cases. So I'm going to ass pothos plants to my sump and set up a scrubber with the usual WC
 

Chizzle

Piranha
MFK Member
Jan 30, 2011
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Only way I know how to get rid of nitrates are WCs and plants. If you are doing 25% tues, 25% thurs, and 50% sun your nitrates should be relatively low. Maybe try 50% tues, 50% thurs, and 50% sunday? I do 50% changes on my 240 and 150 biweekly and wc on my qt according to what meds I am using.
 

polish

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Jun 9, 2008
2,147
2
38
Ne, IN
www.tankterrors.com
Try the test kit on regular tap water, see what you get. If it still reads high try some bottled water. If it reads normal for the bottled water this tells you your tap water has high nitrates. It isn't unheard of you have nitrates from the tap, so even if you did 100% water change daily, you'd still have nitrates. If you get a high reading from all of the above, try getting a new Nitrate test kit, yours may be bad. If you get a low reading from the tap and bottled water, then you may need some plants to help in the tank unless you want to change even more water.
 

dogofwar

Potamotrygon
MFK Member
Jan 3, 2006
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Maryland
www.capitalcichlids.org
Good advice on testing the test kit and your tap...

More / bigger water changes can't hurt. Nor can making sure that there isn't excess food / cutting back on feeding.

Do you have (deep) gravel in the tank? I keep most of my tanks with just a sprinkling of pool filter sand to make it easy to get waste out of the tank.

I also clean my mechanical filtration frequently. Canister filters can become nitrate factories if the mechanical media in them becomes filled with crud.

Matt
 

Unattended Fish

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jan 22, 2010
824
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near but far
I've had this problem before in my 300 but was from overstocking. After reducing the stock my nitnitrares went from 80-90 ppm to less than 10 ppm just my 2 cents
 
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