nitrates in my base, killin my doods

[Lokasenna]

I recently had a pretty heavy die-off in my 110g African tank and I think I've isolated the problem to grossly dangerous nitrate levels. I don't understand where these high nitrate levels are coming from, though.

All other water quality parameters are in the safe zone, there isn't a bunch of decaying organic stuff in my tank and I've changed out all the filter media as well as had a pretty religious water changing schedule for the last couple of weeks. Still, the nitrate levels persist.

I haven't used any chemicals to bring down the nitrates yet because I figured that would just treat the symptom and not the problem. Things are getting bad enough that I may start trying stuff out anyway, though. Any recommendations on what I can do to help remove some of these nitrates?

I was reading somewhere that having a wet/dry filter can cause your nitrate levels to spike. Is this true?

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[kyleking007]

what kind of bio media are you running? are you doing WCs with tap water? have you tested it?

 

[gonnelro]

As far as the wet/dry thing, no, thats not true. Wet/dry's have the best available bio-filtration because of the high oxygen levels resulting from the trickle-effect, as well as the huge space available for high-surface area media. All in all, your nitrates are a result of how much ammonia is produced, then turning to nitrites, then turning to nitrates. Nothing else is going to cause a spike of nitrates. How high are we talking here? I doubt high nitrates could be responsible for a quick die-off like that - more likely it would cause long-term stress problems and infrequent deaths, but a quick die off does not sound like a nitrate problem to me. But, if your nitrates are high, the only answer really is more WC, unless you want to heavily plant your tank or make a nitrate reducer, which I have heard mixed things about. One more thing - you said you changed all your filter media - I gues you mean all the chemical media, or the carbon? Do not change the bio-media, if you did, thats probably why they died. Never change the biomedia, its where the benifical bacteria that is at the heart of your filter lives. Can you list more info, like what filter you run, what media is in it, how long has it been up and running, add any fish recently, whats the temp, ph, ammonia, nitrites, water change schedule, what your treat your water with, etc. (although that should suffice)?

 

[Lokasenna]

Thanks for taking the time to respond to my post. Here is the long story:

Technically this isn't my tank but rather a tank I helped set up and maintain for my friend. I go to college a couple hundred miles away so I come down when I can and help him with whatever problems he may be having. He's not a total newbie to the trade, though, and he does know how to do water changes, water tests and change out carbon, etc.

The tank is 110g with a built in wet/dry filter. I believe it was used as a marine tank prior to us buying it. Currently, it has an rena xp 4 (i believe) canister filter, which is new because the old school fluval it came with just wasn't cutting it. When I say he changed out the filter media I am referring to carbon and filter pads. He leaves the biomedia in.

Current tank inhabitants: 2x bumblebee cichlids, x1 auratus, x2 featherfin catfish, x5 or so socolfi

Since this problem has started up he's been doing partial water changes (20-30%) every 3 or 4 days. The water is treated with dechlorinator but I honestly don't remember what kind.

The water temperature is rougly 78 degrees, give or take and all the other water parameters are fine. The nitrate, however, is in the 200 ppm range. The tap water out here does have a slight amount of nitrate in it, but nothing even close to what our tank is showing.

According to my friend, in a fairly short amount of time he has lost 2 venustus, a couple socolofi, and a very nice looking Hemitilapia oxyrhynchus. I asked him if he could describe what they looked like prior to death but out side of ADR syndrome (ain't doing right) he didn't have much to add.

Furthermore, I went over to check on his fish last night and almost his whole clutch of socolofi's are losing their pigment. It's really strange. One is so completely washed out that it looks white and others have a color pattern that looks like the actual scales have been picked off (they haven't though). Entire patches of color are just fading off.

I asked him if he was maybe having aggression issues from his rather large bumblebee cichlids but he swears up and down that they don't pick on anyone but each other. I'm inclined to believe this because no one in the tank has any physical signs of abuse (torn fins, ripped scales, etc). Heck, I'd go so far as to say that the big guys (bumblebees and catfish) are actually good looking specimens. Everyone is eating fine and I don't see any clamped fins.

When I first heard he was having this problem I instructed him to vastly cut back on his feeding (because he was particuarly prone to dump way too much food in there, resulting in a detritus carpet), which he did. To the naked eye, his tank looks just fine.

it's all very strange.

 

[gonnelro]

Hm, well, I dunno, still Id test the ph, ammonia, nitrites, and make sure theyre ok, keep up the water changes, make sure the dechlorinator is being used properly, and make sure your friend isnt still overfeeding. Sounds a bit odd to me 2. Might as well pump up the temp to 82 for a little while, add some salt. Seems to be a good idea to do when you dont know whats wrong - cant really hurt I guess (people on this site always reccommend adding salt in these types of situations). Thats as far as I can guess though, so good luck man

 

[Finmore]

Could the problem be some sort of infectious disease? Some of the symptoms you describe (patches of paleness) are consistent with necrotic tissue.

 

[elevatethis]

Have you tried testing your tap water?

When I worked at a LPS way back when, we had a few customers complain of die-offs in the same span of time, and come to find out, they were part of the same municipal water system.

Also, as far as your own water test, I'd try a different test kit as well. It wouldn't be the first time that a bad test kit gave a false reading for nitrates in my experience.

 

[Lokasenna]

I haven't entirely ruled out the possibility of some disease being the problem in my tank, but I figured it was probably caused by the staggeringly high nitrate levels. I was told that the giant hap did have a kind of pop-eye happening before it died, but the venustus died over night with no visble signs of stress. In regards to the scolofi's and their color change...I've never seen anything like it. There doesn't appear to be any actual physical trauma that I can see (the scales appear to be in tact, etc)...the color is just draining.

We did have one of the older socolofis come down with finrot (she is not segregated and being treated) but all these physical symptoms seem to come down to "bad water quality." I just can't think of what else to do other than treat willy-nilly for an assortment of possible diseases.

For the record, this is the second set of test strips to report the nitrates this high. The first time around we thought something was wrong and picked up another bottle.