Your Nitrate levels?

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
Usually around 10ppm although today it was at 20ppm (holiday slacking) before I did my WC's.
 
My FW tanks run between 20-40. Sometimes a little higher. My well water has zero nitrates in it and I am going to be running continuous change systems on all of my tanks now. I am looking for less than 20 without any manual water changes.

My SW reef tank is near zero all of the time.
 
I have a major problem with mine - it's at nitrates are at 200 (the highest my test kit will read) my nitrites are at 0.5. Over the past week I have done 3 water changes - half the first time, then a third 2 days later, then 2/3 the day after that (I finally got my own kit instead of taking water to the shop) How do I get the nitrate levels down? water changes appear to be doing nothing.

My tank is not planted as the fish tear apart any plants I put in in short order
 
you may have built up fish terds in decorations and gravel. that would be a reason.
 
my main tank is 80ppm but is 3 days late for a WC and will get one tonight after i buy some dechlor today.
the other tank is around 20ppm but the WC is not due until the weekend.
 
Kitiara;1389849; said:
I have a major problem with mine - it's at nitrates are at 200 (the highest my test kit will read) my nitrites are at 0.5. Over the past week I have done 3 water changes - half the first time, then a third 2 days later, then 2/3 the day after that (I finally got my own kit instead of taking water to the shop) How do I get the nitrate levels down? water changes appear to be doing nothing.

My tank is not planted as the fish tear apart any plants I put in in short order
Click to expand...

i would worry about the nitrites first they should read zero.......how long has the tank been running.......what filters ??
 
Kitiara;1389849; said:
I have a major problem with mine - it's at nitrates are at 200 (the highest my test kit will read) my nitrites are at 0.5. Over the past week I have done 3 water changes - half the first time, then a third 2 days later, then 2/3 the day after that (I finally got my own kit instead of taking water to the shop) How do I get the nitrate levels down? water changes appear to be doing nothing.

My tank is not planted as the fish tear apart any plants I put in in short order
Click to expand...

Do you have a wet/dry? You can get really high nitrates if you don't clean your balls regularly.

I agree with JohnPTC - Nitrites should always read zero. Ammonia should read zero as well.
 
Tank has been running for over a year, the current filter was added about 3 months ago when the internal filter was deemed as insufficent. Filter is an external cannister Jebao 818 but I found it had jammed up with a dammned snail and unknown how long it had been like that before I discovered it on my regular tank clean (it runs silent) When I discovered the problem I did complete filter clean out, gravel vacuum including under ornaments (yes, the gravel was nasty....) and did water change of about 50%. Followed up by the 1/3rd change after another day. Last night I did a 2/3 water change and tested this morning - nitrate levels are down to around 160 -180 and nitrite was unchanged, I would have expected more of a difference. As we have water restrictions in place where I live due to drought I can't just keep dumping hundreds of liters of water out every day with little return (and the catfish hate low water levels, one broke the tip of a pectoral fin yesterday due to it's panic over low water - they normally swim in vertical circles which they can't do in 6' of water)

I tested my tap water - it tests at 20 for nitrates and 0 for nitrite.

I don't have a test kit for ammonia (yet)

As for cleaning my balls - that can be taken SO wrong.....
 
All my tanks are around 20-30ppm, and thats usually at the time of a water change. The water out of my tap reads 40ppm:WHOA:! So I have to run it through and RO unit and purge water for water changes.
 
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