I was just curious to what everyones nitrates usually read when they test. I feel that I keep my tanks very clean.. Not as much as could be. But I have over filtration on everything and do at least weekly water changes. Probably more like every 5 days. Should my tank be zeroed out in all three Amonia,Nitrite, and Nitrates. I know you shouldn't have amonia and Nitrite for sure but do you all get zero readings in nitrates as well. Mine alway seem to be between 20-40 ppm.. Thanks
Typical Nitrate Level
- Thread starter unknownuza13
- Start date
keeping nitrates at 0 is very difficult to impossible imo, recently i had my nitrates clocked at 110 ppm, since i had alot of **** collecting in my prefilter and wet-dry, cleaned it out and did a 50% water change, forgot to test, but they stopped scratching themselves so i must have did something right 
.
.Generally speakin for all fish, you try to aim for below 60ppm....the lower the better. 80ppm should be about the max you should ever have it. After that the fish reallly start to get stressed and can possibly die. Aim as low as you can though. Frequent water changes, regulated feedings, efficient filtration, and proper stocking of the tank will help keep these down low. If your water starts lookin cloudy, bacteria bloom, lol, tis time for a water change.
repair said:I'm working on an low cost automatic water changer..it would change water 4 times a day...anywhere from 25 to 100 of the water each week. that should keep them low
I hope you mean that it would change the water on different tanks 4 times a day....lol...cuz geez..that might stress your fish out a bit doing 4 water changes in one day on the same tank...lol...sounds kewl bro! let us know how it works out aight?
repair said:I'm working on an low cost automatic water changer..it would change water 4 times a day...anywhere from 25 to 100 of the water each week. that should keep them low
lemme know when your done with it, i could use one.
btw, 25-100 gallons or percentage of water?
Peanut_Power said:
A lot of the fish farms change 100% of the water every day.
on my 300 I would change 40 gal a day...10 gal at a time.
by changing the water in a small amount several times a day keeps your water chem from the big swings you get when you do a big change once a week.