high nitrates

[Knowdafish]

Sisters!

 

[predator88]

lol ya i know its bad enough i broke both my ankles but then she goes and messes with my fish tank haha

 

[redturq]

i have a 36Lx14Hx12W tank. And i do weekly 20% water changes. But recently i have been noticing that my nitrate levels are high. So for the past 2 days i have done 10% WC everyday and the nitrates are not going down and if they are they are going down very little. What should i do? Am i just not waiting long enough for it to go down? Thanks for your help

If WC is not helping then its something else. What time of filter are you using? Alot of people uses canisters here and they tend to neglect cleaning them. Food and feces accumulates and decompose inside those filters and ends up as Nitrates. In fact Eheim recommends to clean their filter every 6 months??? which is a No No unless you put a sponge in the intake tube.

 

[predator88]

i have a marineland penguin 150 power filter and an under gravel filter because it came with the tank....thinking about adding an xp3 or fluval 305 to it so those filters build up bacteria to lessen the cycle time when i get a 75g

 

[Knowdafish]

If WC is not helping then its something else. What time of filter are you using? Alot of people uses canisters here and they tend to neglect cleaning them. Food and feces accumulates and decompose inside those filters and ends up as Nitrates. In fact Eheim recommends to clean their filter every 6 months??? which is a No No unless you put a sponge in the intake tube.

A sponge IN the intake tube? Then it's OK to not change it for 6 months?? !!

 

[redturq]

A sponge IN the intake tube? Then it's OK to not change it for 6 months?? !!

Not the water change but cleaning the filters every 6 months. I do WC once a week 25% or more depends on the bioload.

 

[OnceLoyal]

When you change your water are you doing it with a gravel vac>?? 10% a day is fine, a lot of work imo I would do a bigger change less frequently, but I would make sure you are filtering out your gravel.

 

[predator88]

ya im using a gravel vac and getting all the poop out of the gravel or at least trying. it still comes out nasty brown prolly because no WC for a month while i was in the hospital and such

 

[nfored]

Nitrates gave me a problem with my pH. I rarely checked my pH, when I did they where always off the chart above 8.6, well i just checked them to see what they where and they dropped to 6.6. I don't know how long it took or how long they have been that low but I do know it was from high nitrate build up.

 

[predator88]

i just tested my tap water for nitrates and there is none in my tap water so im starting to think it is a build up underneath my indergravel filter that is causing high nitrates. If i drain my tank and clean it all out do u think it is even worth putting the undergravel filter back in?