Nitrates - Need help
- Thread starter palmbreeze
- Start date
***Problem***
I am leaving for vacation this Friday! I've been doing water changes everyday trying to rid of this nitrate problem. I tested nitrates last night and they were still really high. What should I do? I'll be gone for a week. I'd hate to come home to all my brand new fish being dead!
I never tested the water with my cichlids. I have a canister filter and when I clean it I take it apart and rinse the sponges, change the water, and rinse everything off. I don't mess with one part of the filter, I think it has the ceramic rings in it.
I am leaving for vacation this Friday! I've been doing water changes everyday trying to rid of this nitrate problem. I tested nitrates last night and they were still really high. What should I do? I'll be gone for a week. I'd hate to come home to all my brand new fish being dead!
I never tested the water with my cichlids. I have a canister filter and when I clean it I take it apart and rinse the sponges, change the water, and rinse everything off. I don't mess with one part of the filter, I think it has the ceramic rings in it.
Any disruption can cause a mini-cycle and it does not have to be through Ammonia or nitrItes, although this is the most common by adding too many fish too soon.
When rhardy mentioned that you now "have 35 fish in the tank" - did you increase or decrease?
Are you removing any excess food if not eatten within a few minutes (I remove my excess after 2 hours to be honest here
)?And yes, adding a chemical to de-toxify the nitrAtes is only masking the issue. To resolve this you will need to find out "why". HOWEVER, if this cannot be discovered prior to you leaving, for fear of loosing fish, this may be your best recource, although a poor one, to ensure that you at least have fish to come home to - Or at the least the possability...
Personally, I would do 25% PWCs every 4-6 hours until you have done 100% and re-test after a few hours.
*If you have really high concentrations of nirtAtes your fish have acclimated themsleves to it, and a sudden drop can cause a lot of stress and acclimation shock!
I tested the water with the cichlids and large common plecos. Palmbreeze took over the tank when it was restocked.
0 NH3/4
0 NO2
~20ppm NO3
------------------------------
Rena Filstar Xp2
Large Sponge (x2)
Small Sponge (x2)
Ceramic Rings (1 Layer, all set up vertical)
Micro Sponge (x1)
Aries
0 NH3/4
0 NO2
~20ppm NO3
------------------------------
Rena Filstar Xp2
Large Sponge (x2)
Small Sponge (x2)
Ceramic Rings (1 Layer, all set up vertical)
Micro Sponge (x1)
Aries
It is hard to say whether I increased or decreased. I had more than 5 cichlids, pleco, and the RTS. Then I lost 2 of my cichlids and decided to restock. So I sold the cichlids and restocked the next day. I got the pearls and phatoms one day, then the swords, neons, cories another day and ottos another day. My Cichlids were pretty large, average about 5 inches.
NitrAtes are the by-product of a functional cycle. Ammonia is converted to NitrIte, NitrIte is converted to NitrAtes. Therefore high NitrAtes are the result of excess waste products...anything that is decaying in the tank including fish waste, uneaten food, dead fish, dead algae/bacteria, and even rotting plants can release ammonia that will eventually be converted to NitrAtes by the biological filter.
There are two Natural ways to deal with NitrAtes:
1) Fast growing plants will help to absorb some of the NitrAtes in the system
2) Far less common in freshwater tanks, you can buy or DIY build a Denitrator (which should not be necessary in a freshwater tank)...like all other filters they take about 6 weeks to cycle.
As others have stated before...it's a better to figure out WHY the nitrates are so high! The bioload for your tank doesn't look like it's too high, so hence why I was wondering if it was possibly something in the tank.
Some other things to check:
1) Try cutting back on how much the fish are being fed
2) The reason I asked about how you cleaned the filter is that sometimes heavier waste particles sink to the bottom of the filter, continuing to decay and thus produce heavy nitrates...if you have already rinsed everything out well though it seems unlikely eh?
3) Was the tank heavily rearranged after you got rid of the cichlids? Check for any dead spots amongst the decorations/plants that could be a spot where stuff is getting deposited.
4) When I say deep vac your substrate...I mean down to the glass (if it's possible with your substrate). I do this to a small section of the gravel bed after I've lightly vac'd the entire tank and the amount of extra crap that gets pulled up is pretty amazing/gross!
*Edit* Just a few other notes:
- Your fishes diet will also affect how "toxic" their waste is. High protein diets produce more ammonia than veggie diets...which is why a smaller carnivorous fish can sometimes have a higher bioload than a larger veggie eater
- Deep gravel vacs not only help remove extra crud...they help prevent anaerobic pockets from forming in the substrate...the finer the substrate the more important it is to "stir" every once 'n awhile. Plants (via the roots), and some digging critters (like certain species of snails) help with this as well.
Sorry if you've tried all of these things...but I always try to approach one persons problem with the idea that if I can't help them at least it perhaps helps someone else. ^_~
There are two Natural ways to deal with NitrAtes:
1) Fast growing plants will help to absorb some of the NitrAtes in the system
2) Far less common in freshwater tanks, you can buy or DIY build a Denitrator (which should not be necessary in a freshwater tank)...like all other filters they take about 6 weeks to cycle.
As others have stated before...it's a better to figure out WHY the nitrates are so high! The bioload for your tank doesn't look like it's too high, so hence why I was wondering if it was possibly something in the tank.
Some other things to check:
1) Try cutting back on how much the fish are being fed
2) The reason I asked about how you cleaned the filter is that sometimes heavier waste particles sink to the bottom of the filter, continuing to decay and thus produce heavy nitrates...if you have already rinsed everything out well though it seems unlikely eh?
3) Was the tank heavily rearranged after you got rid of the cichlids? Check for any dead spots amongst the decorations/plants that could be a spot where stuff is getting deposited.
4) When I say deep vac your substrate...I mean down to the glass (if it's possible with your substrate). I do this to a small section of the gravel bed after I've lightly vac'd the entire tank and the amount of extra crap that gets pulled up is pretty amazing/gross!
*Edit* Just a few other notes:
- Your fishes diet will also affect how "toxic" their waste is. High protein diets produce more ammonia than veggie diets...which is why a smaller carnivorous fish can sometimes have a higher bioload than a larger veggie eater
- Deep gravel vacs not only help remove extra crud...they help prevent anaerobic pockets from forming in the substrate...the finer the substrate the more important it is to "stir" every once 'n awhile. Plants (via the roots), and some digging critters (like certain species of snails) help with this as well.
Sorry if you've tried all of these things...but I always try to approach one persons problem with the idea that if I can't help them at least it perhaps helps someone else. ^_~
Last edited:
This is a common problem here in the UK, with people utilising different methods to bring it down.
However, having read the whole thread, I can't see the OP testing the tap water for nitrates. Would give a good ball park figure for us to start with - whether it is actually decaying matter in the tank or not....
Ok I'm really stuck on what to do. I'll be on vacation for an entire week! My nitrates keep going off the chart. What will happen if I just leave my tank for a week!? I just don't know what to do! My mother in law is feeding all of my animals (3 Cats, 3 Hammies and 8 tanks) and I'm sure it is overwhelming. I just can't imagine asking her to do a water change while I'm gone. HELP! :help:
It may be better off not to feed them. Feed them a normal feeding before you leave, but don't try to compensate with extra. I may have missed it, but how often and how mch do you feed?
