High nitrates!!!!

[erpethoichthys]

Hi, I have an overstocked tank that I will be taking some fish out to my lfs.My problem is that I have 160ppm of nitrates while I have 0ppm ammonia , 0ppm nitrites and my ph is7.6 . I was doing 60 %wc every 2weeks ,but right now I am doing a 40%wc weekly.
My question is how to improve my nitrates to an aceptable level of about 40 ppm?

 

[Hendre]

Simple. More water changes, take 40% to 60% or even 80% once or twice a week. Make sure your filters and substrates are clean. Are you testing with strips or liquid kits?

 

[ad88]

I would do a daily water change until you get it down or one large water change and clean gunk out of your filters with a thorough gravel clean!

 

[ad88]

Also bump up frequency of water changes.

 

[TwoHedWlf]

Hi, I have an overstocked tank that I will be taking some fish out to my lfs.My problem is that I have 160ppm of nitrates while I have 0ppm ammonia , 0ppm nitrites and my ph is7.6 . I was doing 60 %wc every 2weeks ,but right now I am doing a 40%wc weekly.
My question is how to improve my nitrates to an aceptable level of about 40 ppm?

Remove half the water.
Replace half the water.
Check nitrates
Repeat daily until nitrates are at an acceptable level. Simple.

 

[esoxlucius]

Overstocked tanks aren't exactly rare in the hobby. My 180 com tank is a little on the heavy side. But if you are going to go heavy on the stocking you've got to up your maintainance to cope with the bio load. And i'm afraid to say 40% weekly is no where near enough, it's hardly surprising your nitrate is sky high.

Initially do a few biggish water changes, thin out your stock as mentioned, which will allow you to reduce feeding. Give your mechanical filtration a good clean and do a good vacuum of your substrate. All of these will help reduce nitrate.

For the first few weeks i'd test your nitrate creep quite regularly. This will give you an idea of when to water change and how big your water changes need to be to keep your nitrate at a manageable level. Once you get more confident you'll hardly ever need to test for nitrate, you'll just know that your water changes are keeping everything in check. There's members on here who never test for nitrate and their systems are fine. Ultimately that is the level you want to be at.

 

[FINWIN]

Hi, I have an overstocked tank that I will be taking some fish out to my lfs.My problem is that I have 160ppm of nitrates while I have 0ppm ammonia , 0ppm nitrites and my ph is7.6 . I was doing 60 %wc every 2weeks ,but right now I am doing a 40%wc weekly.
My question is how to improve my nitrates to an aceptable level of about 40 ppm?

Curious, how big is your tank and what fish do you have?

 

[Cardeater]

As I understand it, pH of tank is likely lower than tap bc of the nitrates. I'd start with like a 25-33% water change.

Thrn keep increasing percentage so chemistry is changing slowly.

As stated above, you're gonna have to keep doing daily ones until it's under control (under 20, even under 10 would be better).

As stated above, make sure debris is cleaned out of filters, in gravel and under decorations as your doing your water changes as these are nitrates factories.

After that, as stated, you can figure out how much your nitrates increase weekly/daily.

I don't have plants, so I'm trying to do water changes as soon as it gets to 20ppm. I'm doing 75% or so changed twice a week.

You could planr pothos in HOB or just coming out the top to help (be careful that this is a poisonous plant for cats).

 

[duanes]

To keep my low nitrate goal, I normally did 30-40% water changes every other day, and I hardly ever over crowded my tanks.
With an overcrowded tank, and only a 60% water change every 2 weeks, its not surprsing you nitrates were that high.
I agree with others you need to really step up the water changes to get nitrates under control, and probably up your filter cleaning as well..
And I don't believe only 40 % per week will make much of a dent.

 

[skjl47]

More water changes, take 40% to 60% or even 80% once or twice a week. Make sure your filters and substrates are clean.

clean gunk out of your filters with a thorough gravel clean!

Give your mechanical filtration a good clean and do a good vacuum of your substrate. All of these will help reduce nitrate.

You could planr pothos in HOB or just coming out the top

And I don't believe only 40 % per week will make much of a dent.

Hello; All of the above. Let me add fasting days (no feeding at all) and only one modest feeding a day when you do feed.

If the tank is set up for a long time the filter(s) may be what is sometimes called a "nitrate factory" ( Duanes was the first I knew to use the term.) If such is the case he waterchanges (WC) will help but the nitrates will come back and you may not get below 40ppm.

Some cautions if you clean out the filters. While I am among those who figure the beneficial bacteria (bb) are on many surfaces, I do figure a decent amount are in the filters. With an overstocked tank even losing 20 to 30 % of the bb can get you an ammonia spike. But if the filters are gunked up they need cleaning. Big number one thing is do not clean out all the filter stuff at one time. Do a smaller portion now and more later.
If the filters are not too gunked up you might get by with a "gentle rinse in old tank water". If really gunked up a staged series of cleaning may be needed.
One other thing you can start now is to get some sponge filters and put the bases in he tank somewhere . I keep some in my filters. This will not be of value for a few weeks but can be a good deal in th future.