Nitrate Out of Control

RTR said:
Not cleaning the gravel may be a big mistake - gravel is an excellent reservoir for nitrates in old mulm.

Sorry, I just meant initially. If he added the mulm from the established tank to the new one to give the bacteria a day to establish in the new tank, then back to cleaning.

Try using filter media and/or squeezings from the old tank instead of gravel. There are more nitrifiers in the filter media than gravel, gravel houses mostly heterotrophs (the guys that break down detritus into mulm)
 
ok ill pop in the filter cartridge that is in my established tank, into the spot where the media basket it is. i hope it will fit, its a penguin 170, so we will see today after work..
 
ok it fits, i put the penguin filter it before my emperor filter so the good bacteria could attatch itself to the emperor filter pad...lets hope i see some results soon. :) thanks for th ehelp
 
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