First time encountering Nitrate.. Besides doing frequent water change what else should I do to bring down the NItrate level? Water temp 82-86, ammonia level 0. thanks!
Nitrate problem
- Thread starter Ren714
- Start date
Frequent small water changes will not help once you already have a high reading. You will need to do several huge water changes to bring your levels down and then continue doing frequent water changes to maintain your levels. For example: If you have a nitrate reading of 100 (just using a round number for illustration) and you do a 10% water change, your new reading will be 90, meanwhile your fish are still producing waste adding to the nitrate levels. Even if you are doing daily water changes it nearly impossible to overcome the high levels. Using the same example above, if you perform a 50% water change, your new level will be 50. So you would need three 50% water changes in a row (assuming no additional waste) to get the level to 12.5. I hope this helps.
kendragon;4925967; said:
x2 or atleast some of them do while others consume more ammonia than anything i could be wrong but you can drip the roots of a pothos into the tank if you could get something set up that would hold them up and give them about a month to start working
vac your gravel daily to remove any waste before it breaks down into ammonia and eventually nitrates
Pothos plants did nothing for me. And if you vac to much you are taking good bact. I would do what the other person said and do a couple big water changes
smokeythebair;4927473; said:
Not if your BB has established itself in the fiter media. I gravel vac daily and never seen any problem with my ammonia or nitrite.
Every tank has nitrate. It's perfectly normal. What are your test results. As long as your nitrates a below 40ppm you are fine.
when adding water from the mains i have tested mine and it already contains nitrates therefore meaning that the 20ppm in the tap is the best i could ever achieve true? making 20ppm my target instead of 0? is there anyway around this as i do 2 large water changes a week and just cant seem to drop it below 30?