Nitrates Dandgerously High!! PLS HELP!
- Thread starter borat
- Start date
A quick fix would be to do a 50% water change now, a 30% in several hours, and a 10% several hours after that. That should take your nitrates down significantly without harming you bio filtration. Then in the future, try to do at least 50%/wk religiously. And by all means go with a wet/dry, it will improve things dramatically and your fish will love you for it.
This is a general overview but it'll serve a lot of you.
Nitrates only enter the water via the food you feed. Unless you're bringing them in with the water changes(nitrates out of the tap).
Next, the thing that all my customers have a problem with is that 1 water change during a week won't keep on top of a heavily stocked tank.
However you have your schedule setup, you need to devise a plan to beat the nitrates. Lets say your fish produce 40 nitrates a week, week one, you hit 40, and by week two you're up to 80... We've established 40ppm nitrates per week now.
Now lets use this in a real scenario.
Week 1 40pmm nitrates. 50% water change. Down to 20ppm Nitrates.
Week 2. 40ppm added now you're nitrates are 60ppm. 50% water change drops it to 30ppm Nitrates.
Week 3. 40ppm added Nitrates are now 70ppm. 50% water change brings it down to 35ppm.
Week 4 40ppm added nitrates are now 75ppm. 50% water change. brings it down to 37.5ppm.
So you see how after a month your tank will start out with 37.5ppm nitrates.
This gets amplified with more waste or smaller water changes, or less frequent water changes.
The way to combat this, is a series of water changes in say a weeks time, doing 3x 50% water changes. or Having lots of live plants to help deplete the nitrates.
This is most often the cause of the can't get ahead of my nitrates saying. I try to tell all my customers that each tank is different, there is no rule to how often, how much water to change. It's completely dependent on the tank. 1 person keeping an oscar can feed 3x as much as the next guy.
A lot of people think 20000 gallons per hour of filtration and a 50% water change once a week will beat anything. Running 10 fx5s on a 300 gallon. wont have any effect on nitrates. it'll decrease the time ammonia and nitrates are present in the water, but you still end with the same amount of nitrates.
Nitrates only enter the water via the food you feed. Unless you're bringing them in with the water changes(nitrates out of the tap).
Next, the thing that all my customers have a problem with is that 1 water change during a week won't keep on top of a heavily stocked tank.
However you have your schedule setup, you need to devise a plan to beat the nitrates. Lets say your fish produce 40 nitrates a week, week one, you hit 40, and by week two you're up to 80... We've established 40ppm nitrates per week now.
Now lets use this in a real scenario.
Week 1 40pmm nitrates. 50% water change. Down to 20ppm Nitrates.
Week 2. 40ppm added now you're nitrates are 60ppm. 50% water change drops it to 30ppm Nitrates.
Week 3. 40ppm added Nitrates are now 70ppm. 50% water change brings it down to 35ppm.
Week 4 40ppm added nitrates are now 75ppm. 50% water change. brings it down to 37.5ppm.
So you see how after a month your tank will start out with 37.5ppm nitrates.
This gets amplified with more waste or smaller water changes, or less frequent water changes.
The way to combat this, is a series of water changes in say a weeks time, doing 3x 50% water changes. or Having lots of live plants to help deplete the nitrates.
This is most often the cause of the can't get ahead of my nitrates saying. I try to tell all my customers that each tank is different, there is no rule to how often, how much water to change. It's completely dependent on the tank. 1 person keeping an oscar can feed 3x as much as the next guy.
A lot of people think 20000 gallons per hour of filtration and a 50% water change once a week will beat anything. Running 10 fx5s on a 300 gallon. wont have any effect on nitrates. it'll decrease the time ammonia and nitrates are present in the water, but you still end with the same amount of nitrates.
whaaaa i thought ammonia was converted to nitrite then nitrite was converted to nitrateCoryWM;3266318; said:
HarlanAshmore;3266330; said:
Right, so one could say that the food you feed, goes from food, to amomonia, then to nitrite, to nitrate... aka. food = nitrates.
And just changing water is only covering half the problem.
The fishes urine gets converted into nitrate. But any left over food and also feces get converted into nitrtate as well. The problem is that food and feces are solid wastes and take a good amount of time to decay and break down and actually be avaliable to the bio filter to convert to nitrate.
So even if you do large water changes you are still not covering all the bases. You need to clean the gravel or sand weekly and all the filters on a regular basis as well. To remove the solid waste that is slowly decaying and building the nitrate.
I have found that by cleaning my pre filter sponges in my sump filter on a daily basis that my nitrate level build alot slower than they did when I was cleaning weekly.
The fishes urine gets converted into nitrate. But any left over food and also feces get converted into nitrtate as well. The problem is that food and feces are solid wastes and take a good amount of time to decay and break down and actually be avaliable to the bio filter to convert to nitrate.
So even if you do large water changes you are still not covering all the bases. You need to clean the gravel or sand weekly and all the filters on a regular basis as well. To remove the solid waste that is slowly decaying and building the nitrate.
I have found that by cleaning my pre filter sponges in my sump filter on a daily basis that my nitrate level build alot slower than they did when I was cleaning weekly.
