Big problem with nitrates and nitrites!!

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
A

arowanaking

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jul 25, 2008
279
0
0
Louisiana
my nitrates and nitrites in my smaller tank went up and wont come down ive done multiple wate changes they are at the highest color on the indicator :irked: how do i get them to go down and what is causing this?:confused:
 
most likely caused by an ammonia spike.
ammonia spiked, then nitrite did. gravel vac your tank, dont feed for a while until it goes down.
is it planted? i would recommend getting plants if not, they lower nitrates.

any possible dead fish rotting in there? or anything else? have you overfed recently?
 
Test your tap water first, make sure that's not the source of the problem.

If not, there 2 issues here - The water changes you are performing are removing the ammonia and nitrites that your nitrifying bacteria needs to feed and establish itself, so in otherwords you are slowing down the process by doing so..

Also if you can't get your Nitrite/Nitrate to stabilize, its a sign that you don't have enough biological media (surface area) for all your nitrifying bacteria to establish.. Add some biomedia (biomax beads, matrix, sponge filter, etc) and be patient - maybe use a bacterial supplement like Seachem's Stability.

Time will stabilize the tank, but not if your slowing it down with water changes or lacking surface area.
 
How big is this tank?

How Many Fish you have in it?

How long ago was this tank set up?

Did you just recently add more fish to it?
 
I had an issue like this happen for 2 weeks once. Worse, it was in a BW tank so the WC cost me a fortune! Ammonia & nitrite were off the chart even after 2 80% WC/day. I finally found a decomposed body in side an ornament, added Bio-Spira after yet another 80% WC & the tank was fine.
 
Hi Have you checked your Tap water? Top up with filtered water. I had a similar problem recently found out it was my Tap water is was garbage.
 
I had a similar incident and never found out the cause. I did water changes to bring the ammonia down to low, took out the fish, and added bio spira and some danios to get it back and now it is fine again. I am keeping 4 danios on hand just for this reason.
 
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