High nitrate

T

toffee

AC Members
Oct 30, 2005
58
2
8
Nitrate in one of my tanks is reach 120. Nitrite and ammonia is 0. what to do?
 
Water changes are the only good way to lower nitrate. High nitrate is usually due to not doing water changes often enough, not doing a gravel vacuum often enough, overfeeding, etc. What is your maintanence schedule like?
 
If it's been more than 2 months since your last change, then start out slow by doing a couple of 20% changes before you start doing big 50% ones. Reason being that during the interval between changes your water becomes harder as pure water evaporates and tap water is used to replace it (topping off). Your fish adjust to this slow change, but a big water change can actually improve water quality too quickly and shock the fish. With a nitrate level as high as yours I would quess this is the case.
 
Hi Mooman,

I would also suggest a 30% water change asap, another one 1 week later and so on each week. However, I think it´s very important to find the reasons for your high NO³. I have three suggestions: too much food, too less plants, too many fish in Your tank.
Pls excuse my terrible english since I am in Germany.

Regards,
Bernd
 
Why are high nitrate levels so undesireable? I know ammonia and nitrite are toxic but I thought nitrate was not?
 
small amounts of nitrate is ok, its not AS toxic as ammonia and nitrite, but it is still toxic in high ammounts. you want it under 40ppm, preferably 20ppm or so.

to the original poster, as the bacteria eat ammonia, it breaks down into nitrItes. then more bacteria break the nitrItes down into NitrAtes. but theres nothing to break the nitrAtes down because thats the simplest form. so those can only be removed by regular water changes. the nitrAtes will slowly climb as the bacteria break down the other two, then you do a water change to remove the nitrates.
 
Nitrate is not toxic in the short term like ammonia and nitrite but is in the long term. So there is no rush or panick right now. As Mooman sated start with small water changes. The first few probably won't even register. But do 20% changes twice a day for the next week. After a few days you can probably up that to 30-50% easily with no harm. When the Nitrates drops to around 20ppm or so you can switch back to a weekly schedual. Then start doing 30-50% per week. Measure the nitrates prior to each change. If they are climbing too high again then you need bigger water changes or you really need to look at how much food the fish are getting.
 
low levels around 20ppm are ok and appear in an establinshed tank. They are dangerous to tank inhabitants at high levels.

"Once the nitrite is removed as fast as it is produced by nitrosomonas, the final by-product of the Nitrogen Cycle is nitrate. It is a compound which is not easily reduced any further by aerobic bacteria. Because of this, the nitrate levels begin to slowly rise and continue to build over the rest of th life of the aquarium."- pondenterprises.com
 
Hi Matt,
high NO³ are not really toxic but enhance algae growth. Furthermore, it´s an indicator of some problems you may have like too much feeding which can be dangerous for fish health. And if you have what we call very soft water (low salt, low CO³- and Sulfates etc) you could have an immediate and strong pH fall down in regions below pH 3... Most fish don´t like this
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom