Nitrates soooo high! Can’t get them down. Help

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
JohnnyTBags said:
I use Prime for dechlorinator. Always have.

WC 50% per week. Pain in the butt for just this. My faucets don’t have the ability to house python. I 5 gallon bucket this sh*t

I have 2 Fluval FX6s. Overkill I think.

Tap water is 0ppm

I’ll check canisters, I’m deff not the most diligent filter cleaner but never had an issue like this. If it’s a dirty mess could they cause the high numbers??

Expiration date on test kit is 2021!

Feeding is once a day. Sometimes skip a few days. My wife will dump too many pellets in when I’m away but nothing extreme.

I’m lost. I just checked one canister, gave it a good clean/rinse in tank water. It was pretty cruddy but I’ve seen worse. I dropped a coup bags of purigen in it as well. I’ll check the second tomorrow.
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50% isn't much in a week depending on what you have. Judging by your description I assume you're not terribly overstocked.

This is a guess but I'd say you messed up your test somehow. Id clean the tube and follow the instructions exactly then see where you stand again.

If you have thick gravel that can hide a lot of unseen nitrates as well
 
I actually have a sand substrate that tends to keep all the junk at the surface. When I do water changes I suck all that up too. Always moving decorations and rocks to make sure I don’t miss a drop. That’s weekly. Maybe I need to up to 2 times a week? Fish are getting bigger. Looking forward to diving into the other filter today and see what’s up. I have a feeling that’s the cause cuz I’ve been fish keeping a long time. Over stocked or not (which I’m close) 100+ ppm is insane. Messy eaters too but Never had this it before.
 
To me, the most obvious answers to your dilemma are the canisters, and that you seldom clean them.
Any filter can become a nitrate production factory if not cleaned, but because cans are notoriously "un"-user friendly they become nitrate hot spots.
Anytime gunk is allowed to build up over time, an overabundance of nitrate is the result, and though you do water changes, that same gunk build up in the filter tends to cancel out and replace any good, the water changes have done.
My suggestion would be to start regularly cleaning cans(at separate intervals), rinsing the biomedia in old tank water so there is no gunk.
The good bacteria on media, is a facultative aerobic (invisible) biofilm, and the gunk can smother it if allowed to build up.
 
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It just seems almost unachievable without casualties.

What do you have in there besides the aro?
 
duanes said:
To me, the most obvious answers to your dilemma are the canisters, and that you seldom clean them.
Any filter can become a nitrate production factory if not cleaned, but because cans are notoriously "un"-user friendly they become nitrate hot spots.
Anytime gunk is allowed to build up over time, an overabundance of nitrate is the result, and though you do water changes, that same gunk build up in the filter tends to cancel out and replace any good, the water changes have done.
My suggestion would be to start regularly cleaning cans(at separate intervals), rinsing the biomedia in old tank water so there is no gunk.
The good bacteria on media, is a facultative aerobic (invisible) biofilm, and the gunk can smother it if allowed to build up.
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Yes. I despise canisters now for this reason.
 
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JohnnyTBags said:
have a sand substrate that tends to keep all the junk at the surface
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Hello; If the sand is much over an inch deep then it can form anaerobic pockets where anaerobic bacteria live and produce toxic gas as a waste byproduct. Many with sand stir the sand at least once a week to help break up these pockets. I stopped using fine sands decades ago myself.

Note- now that Duanes is on your thread I suggest you pay close attention to what he may say.
 
duanes said:
To me, the most obvious answers to your dilemma are the canisters, and that you seldom clean them.
Any filter can become a nitrate production factory if not cleaned, but because cans are notoriously "un"-user friendly they become nitrate hot spots.
Anytime gunk is allowed to build up over time, an overabundance of nitrate is the result, and though you do water changes, that same gunk build up in the filter tends to cancel out and replace any good, the water changes have done.
My suggestion would be to start regularly cleaning cans(at separate intervals), rinsing the biomedia in old tank water so there is no gunk.
The good bacteria on media, is a facultative aerobic (invisible) biofilm, and the gunk can smother it if allowed to build up.
Click to expand...



Thank you. This is great advise. Once I get home from work I’ll know more what’s going on in canister 2. I’ll make sure to give them both a good clean, stir sand, and a big water change. I’ll let everyone know how it goes. Thank you so much for the suggestions. Love this forum.

Ps.

All 4-6 inch except where mentioned.

Aro 10in
Green Texas
JD
Red Texas
Choc
Green sev
Birchir
Royal plec
Pike cich
Outcast (10 in front)
 
Sounds like overstock plus dirty filters imo. Bigger and more frequent water changes are in order.

Just saw stock list. Way overstocked, you will not be able to slug buckets of water fast enough. Sorry but your tank will not work out like this.
 
JohnnyTBags said:
and a big water change
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Hello; Let me make another suggestion. Stepping up to much bigger WC all at once may cause problems. A somewhat safer approach can be to step up in stages. Maybe doing a smaller amount more frequently, every day, for a few days. Then start with the larger volume WC on some schedule.
As to what the eventual WC schedule and amount might be? You might use the water test kit results as a guide. Some use nitrate at 20 ppm as a target with 40 ppm as the upper limit. Of course we all would like near 0 ppm but these numbers are sometimes posted.
 
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