I’m An Idiot :) - Nitrates

Okay, long story short I killed my cycle and have to restart but my nitrates are already like 20-30 ppm after the water change I did today (like 75%). So my question is, how else can I lower nitrates? Are there products or plants that get rid of nitrates quickly? I don’t really want to do huge water changes every day because then I have to wait to add ammonia & bacteria and it’s kind of a hard task for me but if that’s the only thing to do then I guess that’s what I’ll do

 

Does your tap water have nitrates in it? I know some people set their water up a few days before a water change and add pothos plant to remove the nitrates in the water.

 

Nitrates won't bother the cycle. The bacteria that convert ammonia to nitrite and nitrite to nitrates won't be hurt by increased nitrates. If you're worried about thinking the cycle is done when it isn't due to the nitrates, there are a lot of commercial products like nitrate removing crystals that just take them away

 

Does your tap water have nitrates in it? I know some people set their water up a few days before a water change and add pothos plant to remove the nitrates in the water.

Yes, but I think it’s like 5-10 ppm. And what’s pothos plant?

 

Nitrates won't bother the cycle. The bacteria that convert ammonia to nitrite and nitrite to nitrates won't be hurt by increased nitrates. If you're worried about thinking the cycle is done when it isn't due to the nitrates, there are a lot of commercial products like nitrate removing crystals that just take them away

More or less just worried about them being SUPER high when the cycle ends since the cycle hasn’t started & they’re already at 20-30 ppm. And having to get them to a safe level before adding fish.

 

Pothos are ivy plants. You can get them at Home Depot.

 

Before you add fish, you can just do a very large water change to get rid of the nitrates. I don't think you need to worry about pothos at this point.

 

I wouldn't worry too much. Even if it gets to, say, 160ppm, if you do three 50% water changes it'll go down to 20ppm.

 

Or just a 100% change.

The only issue with high nitrates is when you have fish or inverts in the tank (not including pest snails). Then you want to keep nitrates under 40 ppm. No fish or inverts = let the nitrates rise!