Good morning all. I have recently acquired a craigslist bargain of a 240 gallon acrylic in near new condition, along with two fluval FX6 and nearly 200lbs of african cichlid sand. Prior to picking everything up, the previous owner had roughly 50-75 adult peacocks/haps. The tank was drained, fish sold, etc; and I picked up everything the next day, along with the FX6's filled with water still. The tank has been set up in my house for a bit over a week and a half now, and I can't seem to lower nitrate below the 20-40 ppm gauge on the API drop test kit. Currently there are 7 small clown loaches in the tank. I'm at a loss here and cant figure out what the problem could be, even after two 30% water changes. My tap water is registering a bit higher than 5 PPM. Could the test kit be bad? It's set to expire OCT 2016 (I shake the nitrate bottle violently, etc before dropping in). Thank you for your time.
Nitrate problem
- Thread starter Slackerlol
- Start date
my first assumption would be the filters need cleaned and the sand probably had unseen particles trapped in it, and getting moved around probably kicked up particulates into your tank water and raised your nitrates.
What are your Ammonia and Nitrite levels?
Thoroughly clean the filter media in tank water or fresh tap water ( I have always used tap) do a LARGE WC (50-70%)and check your levels. Traditionally the only way to lower Nitrate levels is by removing them through water changes, but due to the size of the filters you're using you may have a bunch of mulm built up which is contributing to the high levels as well.
Thoroughly clean the filter media in tank water or fresh tap water ( I have always used tap) do a LARGE WC (50-70%)and check your levels. Traditionally the only way to lower Nitrate levels is by removing them through water changes, but due to the size of the filters you're using you may have a bunch of mulm built up which is contributing to the high levels as well.
I agree with Predatorkeeper87, the media in those filters is probably very gunked up, and should probably be rinsed with old water from a water changes.
Most uncleaned filters tend to be nitrate producing factories.
Most uncleaned filters tend to be nitrate producing factories.
Sooo yeah, my rookie mistake of not checking the inside of canisters, smh 
Also, wouldn't it be more beneficial to replace that space being used as god knows what to more bio? (Edited with full pic of each tray) I can order enough seachem matrix with same day delivery; however should I only fill one cannister with it today, and wait a few days to swap out the other?
Also, wouldn't it be more beneficial to replace that space being used as god knows what to more bio? (Edited with full pic of each tray) I can order enough seachem matrix with same day delivery; however should I only fill one cannister with it today, and wait a few days to swap out the other?
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you have ammonia now? get prime and a bottle of stability while youre at it, you are probably going to have a pretty decent recycle/tank crash if the bacteria in the cans is dying off now.
you still need mech filtration. I'd keep one full of pads/floss or whatever, and the other set up with biomedia.
I'm 100% in agreement for the use of a probiotic, but I think he should get his bio filter under control first before dosing different stuff. I love using RID-X in my tanks, I clean my filter media maybe once every two months now, and theres barely anything to clean lol.