hi I keep testing my tank water its always at 40ppm. I do 25% water changes every 2 days and test the water before doing the water change and it always at 40ppm. my tank is 125gal with 1 jardini and feed it once a day.
nitrate stay the same
- Thread starter Richard203
- Start date
Have you tested your water from tap? If you had 40 nitrates there it would explain the issue and you would probably want to rectify it for your own safety.
should I wait put the water in a cup and wait a few days or I can test it right away?
Are you on well or city water? I would test after water has settled in a glass for 10 min, ammonia nitrite and nitrate tests.
im on city water, I putted 3 tap water in the test tube and wait couple min before testing, i'll post the result in an hr
I change it every 3 month. I don't really want to do a big water change since it will have a big ph swing on the fish. that's why I do water change every 2 days. if my tap water is 0ppm I will try to do a big water change and check on my fish.
Knowing your source water parameters is important, but a 25% wc every other day is probably just not enough. Frequent small water changes do much less to reduce nitrate levels than less frequent larger water changes. Here is a chart which shows the number of wc to reduce 20ppm to zero at 10,25, and 50%. If you reduce nitrates by 25% to 30ppm and have 40ppm before the next wc then you know you have a 10ppm accumulation between wc. Basically at 25% you are just removing the nitrate accumulation for that 2 day period. Check out this link for an easy to use water change calculator.
https://www.hamzasreef.com/Contents/Calculators/EffectOfWaterChanges.php
https://www.hamzasreef.com/Contents/Calculators/EffectOfWaterChanges.php
alright tested the water.
ammonia - 1ppm
nitrite - 0ppm
nitrate - 0ppm
i'll try to do a 50% water change and see whats the nitrate in 2 days
ammonia - 1ppm
nitrite - 0ppm
nitrate - 0ppm
i'll try to do a 50% water change and see whats the nitrate in 2 days
Last edited:
Yeah you will need to do bigger water changes to bring down that nitrate level. I've had it higher before and I had to do 50 -75% a day for several days to get it back down to an acceptable level. Then you can adjust your WC habits to maintain it at whatever ppm level you'd like to keep it at.