To treat with Chemicals?or...not

[Plecos_Ftw]

Hey this may be in the wrong spot but yea someone can move it. I have a decent sized tank with a good selection of fish (2 full grown frontosas, plecos, few cats, some cichlids) and knock on wood, they are pretty healthy. I havent lost ne one but my nitrATES are sky high. theyve always been sky high. I put in some salt, some elodia (sorry for misspelling) and it brought it down a smidge but they are still extremely high. My brother got something called Prime its in a red bottle (got it at petsmart) and he used it in his tank and dramatically lowered his nitrates and some nitrites. I am always against using chemicals and they are doing ok, not acting strange so Id hate to make a problem out of nothing. Should I use that? has anyone heard of that or used it? It says like 4 times the normal amount may be used in emergencies so I cant imagine it being terrible. Please let me know any info its definatly appriciated Thanks so much everyone! have a great night

 

[laura65536]

well I use prime with every waterchange in my tanks, it's a water conditioner, but it's not meant to lower your nitrates. Also if you are having problems with ammonia or nitrites, your tank doesn't have enough bio-filtration, those should always be at 0, but yes, prime is a good way to protect the fish from them if you were to have a mini-cycle or something.
IMO you should be using a water conditioner with water changes, because that gets rid of the nasty stuff in your water (metals, chlorine, ect) and prime looks pricey, but it is actually the cheapest because it takes a lot less to treat a tank.
The only way you can safely remove nitrates is water change, water change, water change. It is pretty much a math equation, if you mitrates are say 80ppm then if you do a 50% waterchange, they will be 40ppm, 75% waterchange and they will be 20ppm. Even in my overstocked tank, my nirtates don't get over 20ppm, it's not safe for the fish. Your fish can slowly grow accustomed to bad water quality, it's called old tank syndrome, but that doesn't make it any better for them. What is you filtration, tank size and water change schedule?

 

[ShadowBass]

How high are your nitrates?

If they're always extremely high you need to up your water change schedule.

 

[Plecos_Ftw]

The tank is a 60 g I have 3 filters running, I do about 15 g water changes weekly. and change the bags bout 2-3 weeks. on the prime bottle it says you can use it as a water conditioner but i use something else for that. yea i always do regular water changes and always change the filter bags when they need it. hmm maybe I should just use it eekk... I hate using chemicals. I have done a 35% water change and it did absolutly nothing for the nitrates. and yea they are between 80-100 ppm I believe

 

[Ianab]

None of the normal water treatments will do anything for Nitrates. There are ways to remove them, but think expensive and technical. Normal filters wont help either, good filtration just converts ammonia into Nitrate faster.

Best way to contol them is water changes, 15% per week may just not be enough. If your Nitrates were 50, and you did a 15% change with pure water it would still be 42.5. Maybe after a week, it's back to 50 again.

Crank up your water changes to reduce the Nitrates, 50% per week isn't excessive .

Use the Prime or similar to treat the new water, it neutralises any chlorine/ammoina/nitrite that may be in your tap water. It will make most any tap water at least safe for fish.

There is no magic potion for clean water, if in doubt do another water change.

Also you should test the nitrates in your tap water, thats the lowest level you can ever get your tank to. If your tap water has high nitrate levels then you need to think about another water source or a Reverse Osmosis filter.

Cheers

Ian

 

[Nick660]

If it was me, I would increase the frequency of those 25% water changes to every-other-day for a few weeks and them re-check the nitrAte.

Prime will not remove nitrAte from your tank but it's an excellent water conditioner/dechlorinator with the added benefit of neutralising/converting ammonia and nitrIte to to a less toxic form.

 

[Plecos_Ftw]

maybe what ill do is do 20% water changes weekly, but Ill treat the water I put in with prime. My brother said he put some in his tank just without doing a water change and it dramatically lowered his nitrates. Also... Ianab has a point..Ill check my tap..I know we get soft water changed every week and Its mega soft which blows for my cichlids. I think thats what I can do. I just wanted to make sure I wasnt screwing up by making a problem worse even tho its not really a problem. Ha that was a tongue twister eek! Thanks all for your time.. If anyone else has info Im always open to it! thank you!

 

[Plecos_Ftw]

Since everyone seemed to say that Prime is a good water conditioner ne ways I guess I shouldnt be worried. I worry about my babies!!!!

 

[ShadowBass]

Prime does detoxify nitrates, but you still need to upgrade your water change schedule if possible.
There's no reason to use prime WITH other water conditioners, it does just fine on its own. I have 11 FW tanks and have used it on all of them filling directly with my python and no problems.

15% water changes per week are almost nothing in a heavily stocked tank. 50% per week is more reasonable if you want to keep nitrates down.

Have you tested your tapwater for nitrates? If you a 35% water change and it did absolutely nothing, either your nitrates were off the charts and it didn't bring them down into readable range, or you actually added nitrates through your tapwater.

 

[Plecos_Ftw]

hmm yea I still havent been home to check my tap nitrates.. im sure they are sky high . what i will do is do 35% water changes with prime. I meant that i wouldnt use my other water conditioner ill just use some prime it says like 2 drops per gal. ill be doing a 35% water change this thursday after work then conditioning with prime. i will also test my nitrates in my tap. if my nitrates in my tap are sky high, ne ideas what i can do?