Nitrates soooo high! Can’t get them down. Help

[JohnnyTBags]

Hello everyone,

125g tank
0 ammonia
0 nitrites
100+ nitrates

Tank was upgraded from 75g about a year ago. Always tended to have around 40 ppm but never affected my fish. Now I’m seeing some breathing concerns. I do a 50-75% water change per week. I have no idea to combat this and my aro I think is feeling the pain. He’s my newest addition and looks like sh*t. Won’t eat, thin, swimming weakly.

Please help. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Purigen? Carbon? Prime? Water change? Big issue here. Help

 

[astrocreep]

I would double up on your water changes. What chemicals do you use do de-chlorinate?

 

[tlindsey]

Hello everyone,

125g tank
0 ammonia
0 nitrites
100+ nitrates

Tank was upgraded from 75g about a year ago. Always tended to have around 40 ppm but never affected my fish. Now I’m seeing some breathing concerns. I do a 50-75% water change per week. I have no idea to combat this and my aro I think is feeling the pain. He’s my newest addition and looks like sh*t. Won’t eat, thin, swimming weakly.

Please help. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Purigen? Carbon? Prime? Water change? Big issue here. Help

What is your water change routine and how much do you remove?
Also have you checked your tap water for nitrate?

 

[PYRU]

There's no way. Have you checked the expiration of your kit?

What's your tap parameters? Have you cleaned your filters (especially canisters)? Is something rotting in there with it?

I would do 50% every other day if its truly high until you figure out the issue.

 

[skjl47]

125g tank

my aro I think is feeling the pain. He’s my newest addition and looks like sh*t

Hello; Sounds like you may have a big bio-load in a 125.

Have you checked the expiration of your kit

Hello; This. Also I think the nitrate test is one that needs to have the stuff shaken a lot. maybe do a lot more shaking. Also clean out the vials with some distilled water. (As a check you can test distilled water for nitrates. It should be zero. If not then some thing is amiss with the kit or the procedures.)
Also test the source water (tap water) for nitrates as some are reporting bad source water lately.

Have you cleaned your filters (especially canisters)? Is something rotting in there with it?

Hello; There is a term "nitrate factory" used to describe filters that do not get serviced on a regular basis. Fish poo, uneaten food and other organic stuff can wind up in a filter and it just decays. One function of a filter is to trap some of this stuff so it can be removed from the closed system which is a tank.
Please tell us more about your filter cleaning procedures. A note of caution; If you have not cleaned the filter in a while some care needs to be taken to avoid a mini-cycle.

As others have stated up the WC a lot and I add reduced feedings for a time. What is your feeding schedule?

 

[JohnnyTBags]

I use Prime for dechlorinator. Always have.

WC 50% per week. Pain in the butt for just this. My faucets don’t have the ability to house python. I 5 gallon bucket this sh*t

I have 2 Fluval FX6s. Overkill I think.

Tap water is 0ppm

I’ll check canisters, I’m deff not the most diligent filter cleaner but never had an issue like this. If it’s a dirty mess could they cause the high numbers??

Expiration date on test kit is 2021!

Feeding is once a day. Sometimes skip a few days. My wife will dump too many pellets in when I’m away but nothing extreme.

I’m lost. I just checked one canister, gave it a good clean/rinse in tank water. It was pretty cruddy but I’ve seen worse. I dropped a coup bags of purigen in it as well. I’ll check the second tomorrow.

 

[skjl47]

I’ll check canisters, I’m deff not the most diligent filter cleaner but never had an issue like this. If it’s a dirty mess could they cause the high numbers??

Hello; I think it is possible.

Feeding is once a day. Sometimes skip a few days. My wife will dump too many pellets in when I’m away but nothing extreme.

Hello; This sounds OK.

I’m lost. I just checked one canister, gave it a good clean/rinse in tank water. It was pretty cruddy but I’ve seen worse. I dropped a coup bags of purigen in it as well. I’ll check the second tomorrow

Hello; To me there are two types of filter media. One for trapping junk and the other for being a surface to home the beneficial bacteria (bb) we need for a good cycle. Once the junk trapping filter media gets clogged up I toss it away and replace. I know the rinse and reuse media is popular but does not make sense to me.
The bio media I do treat with more care and do reuse. Sometimes a simple rinse in tank water. Other times if it is really clogged up I do a more thorough cleaning. I do not clean all the bio-media at one time. In your case maybe do one canister and then a week or two later do the other. That way not all the bb are affected.

 

[Andy woods cichlids uk]

Is the tank over stocked. We need a stock list with fish sizes. Doesn't matter how many large filters you have if your over stocked you will struggle with nitrates.

 

[Rob909]

As stated above, definitely check your filters more frequently.

But here’s what I havent seen mentioned yet: What’s your substrate? I’ve found that if a lot gets built up in the substrate, nitrates will rise and no matter how large or frequent the water changes, you won’t get the nitrates down until you do a very thorough cleaning of your substrate.
This is why I went barebottom, it’s much easier to maintain.
Run your fingers like a rake through the gravel/sand, if it clouds the water like crazy, it will tell you how much detritus is really built up in there.

 

[twentyleagues]

I agree with everything already said. Canister filters are like trash cans. You need to empty the trash that goes in there. If you just keep putting trash in the can it will eventually just start coming back out, so you empty it. If you have a high bioload you may need to do that more often. You can get a prefilter that will go inline to catch most of the debris. Its a great idea that we dont employ enough here.

When you do wc do you gravel vac? You should. Do you use any type of probiotics? I use ridex and it eats up alot of the mulm making water changes more effective I believe. There is a whole thread on it.
https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/...robiotics-in-aquaculture.536531/#post-6415196
Try that it does help. I didnt notice anything immediately and thought this is worthless but if you keep using it you will notice less foating particles and less large stuff comes up when vacuuming.

Also id try and cut back feedings to every other day if possible. But that depends on your inhabitants if they are very young you may not want to do that. As for the arowana try target feeding it with some tilapia or shrimp until it fattens up a bit.