High Nitrates

[steve617]

I have a 58 gallon tank and in the past couple years I have really not maintained it very well. It currently has a few very expensive cats and a couple nice cichlids so I figure I need to maintain it better. I had bought several small young africans and over the period of a month I lost all of them (all of the young africans). I did all of my water test and my nitrates are out of the roof. Last week I did about 1/3 water change and it helped. I also took out my under gravel filter. My filteration is a fluval 203 and a whisper 3. I also am going to by another power filter.

Checked this week and again high. 160 plus I did 8 gallons yesterday afternoon and another 8 last night. Check today and still maxed out on my chart so I did another 8 gallons. My plans is to take out 8 gallons daily just to try to get it down.

I feed only once a day and I dont try to overfeed. By the way I checked my tap water and it was 10 on nitrates. Amonia levels was fine. Any suggestions.

Thanks

Steve

[PumaWard]

Have you checked your tap to see if there are nitrates in it?

Also, I would do more along the lines of a 50% water change, 8g is only about 14% which may not make much of a dent in things. It's also possible that your nitrates are much higher than the test kit can read and you'll need to keep up the water changes a while before your detect any less.

Edit: Added some stuff

[steve617]

tap is about 10. I will do larger ones if it has not gone down. Thanks

Steve

[yhbae]

You could also consider adding some plants - do you have any in your tank? How much light do you have?

[Raithan Ellis]

Originally posted by PumaWard
Have you checked your tap to see if there are nitrates in it?

Also, I would do more along the lines of a 50% water change, 8g is only about 14% which may not make much of a dent in things. It's also possible that your nitrates are much higher than the test kit can read and you'll need to keep up the water changes a while before your detect any less.

Edit: Added some stuff

Personally, I would not drastically increase the size of water changes, unless you have an immediate reason to do so (dead fish decaying in the tank for an extended period of time). It sounds to me as though some of it's inhabitants have survived in nitrate rich conditions for quite some time? Going too quickly from poor water conditions to good water can be incredibly stressful on many fish, sometimes even resulting in death. Slow and steady is the key with a mature tank.

Cheers,
Raithan O. Ellis

[snakeskinner]

they do make some absorbant pads that are supposed to soak up the nitrates but I've never tried any and don't know anyone that has. Might search on these forums and see if anyone's used it before. I agree with doing a more massive water change and discontinue feeding for a few days. have you done a good vacuuming? there may be so much debris in the substrate that it just keeps building eventhough you're taking a lot out. I've never checked my tapwater for nitrates but I used distilled water to do my water change last time and it helps a lot since there is absolutely nothing in it. What is your PH? If you use distilled, just make sure you aren't going to make a massive PH change and stress the fish. I did about a 50% water change and didn't feed the fish for 5 days and it brought mine way down into the acceptable range. Kyle

[steve617]

Thanks for the advice. I did 12 gallon yesterday and 12 the day before. Today I did 8. I got some new fish 2 days ago and dont want to stress them by a big change. I also dont want to kill them from high nitrates. I always vaccum when doing water changes. I may go a little more tommorow. Thanks for the advice.

Steve

[NatakuTseng]

I would highly reccomend not getting ANY new fish untill you have your nitrates under control, they are coming from a fairly clean environment with low nitrates (generally speaking) and your putting them into a tank with high nitrates, that shock and stress is most likely what killed the first new ones you added, and probably will happen to these new ones. Just because your other fish are acting fine doesn't mean new ones you put in will be ok. Get your nitrates under control and then think about adding more fish. Also a weekly water change should become part of your routine, 20-30% a week, this will keep the nitrates under control, as for plants, I wouldn't reccomend it with any larger cichlids, these fish will eat, rip up, or dig up your plants and they won't last long in the tank. Routinely water changes are the best way to keep nitrates under control if you can't have plants in the tank, even then water changes need to be a routine.

[steve617]

The fish has already been added. So there is not a lot I can do. They are a totally different type of fish. That may not make a difference. Routine water changes will be made when things get under control. Right now I am doing it daily.

Steve