i just wondered if any of you guys ever tried Fluval nitrate remover or Kent Marine Nitrate Sponge? Does it even help at all? I'm only asking because I recently had a bad nitrate spike a little over 2 weeks ago and been doing almost daily 20% wc's + today's 50% wc, gravel vac and filter rinse that I now have it under control (not perfect but almost there). All my other water params are great but I wanna know if any of these 2 products will help? Thanks!
Nitrate question
- Thread starter 808flipsyde
- Start date
oops....sorry...im still new 2 this site so I figured I would post this where It would relate 2 the type of fish that I have..my fault.
You seem to be doing everything right.. keep up with the water changes.. piranha are very dirty, producing nitrate and phosphate like a factory.. check your tap water and see what the readings are.. i know i had a problem with phosphate and doing water changes with my tap water just made it worse.. but anyways goodluck and welcome to MFK..
the best way to keep your nitrate levels under control is by doing frequent water changes, plants can also help, but you still need to test your water and perform water changes
cepon3;1732374; said:
thanx 4 the info cepon3.i guess i'll just do it the old fashion way with the wc's.
JoeDizzleMPLS;1733016; said:
ummm..i guess you guys would say it is? It's a 125g with 8 rbp's (my p's are only about 2.5" so im not worried about the size of the tank yet) in it but my filtration turnover rate is like 18.4 times per hour so I think im ok on that part. But the reason why I think I got the nitrate spike was because I mad my first noob mistake of cleaning my filters in clean water insted of the tank water (never gonna do that again
) Before that...during the cycling...all the params were excellent.JoeDizzleMPLS;1733293; said:
will do JoeDizzleMPLS with the wc's but i also had the problem of my p's busting up the A.swords that i put in there so i eventually took them out lol
washing your filters wouldn't cause a nitrate spike, it could have caused an ammonia or nitrite spike, but by washing your filters in tap water, you would be killing nitrifying bacteria, which could cause a mini cycle... since nitrate is the end product of that cycle, and assuming that your nitrite and ammonia levels are still at 0, your cycle is still in place. a high filter turnover rate won't keep your nitrate levels down either. your tank definitely isn't overstocked yet, those fish are far too small to consider it overstocked, so that isn't the problem either.
do you normally perform almost daily 20% water changes, or have you just been doing that since the spike? if not, what is your normal water change schedule?
do you normally perform almost daily 20% water changes, or have you just been doing that since the spike? if not, what is your normal water change schedule?