My tank keeps having high nitrates

Hello please can someone help me?
I have 2 danios sick because of the high nitrates. I noticed that the output of the canister filter have a lot of diatoms
Here I list my parameters
volume of the tank: 20 gallons
has been running for 6 months
filter: suusun hw 302 and a under gravel
heater: Yes, in the outline of the filter
water temperature: 78.4
stocking of this tank: 4 danios and 15 cherry shrimps. Before I had 2 small turtles but I had to give them to a friend because they ate 2 danios and all the plants.

Maintenance
I normally change the water once per week (5 gallons)
I use to treat the water the Seachem prime
I vacuum the substrate When I do the water change.

Parameters
I cycled the tank before adding fish
I test the water with strips and api kit

Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 80ppm
pH: 7.6

Feeding
I feed the fish Twice at day just a little bit each time with Glo fish special flake food and top fin pro series tropical fish crumbles and twice at week Frozen blood worms.

I just made a 10 gallons water change and the nitrates drop to 30ppm.
I’m really desperate with this situation, don’t know what to do.

 

nitrates will almost never be at 0 dont worry about nitrates. theres lots of debates as to what levels of nitrates are acceptable but honestly as long as theyre not above 100 ppm dont worry about them unless you have sensitive fish which i dont think you do. if your doing anything over 25% water change more than once a week you will in the short run do more damage to your fish because you will stress them out because of such drastic water changes. just relax and let your tank fully cycle it will take of itself so long as you dont do more damage to it.

 

nitrates will almost never be at 0 dont worry about nitrates. theres lots of debates as to what levels of nitrates are acceptable but honestly as long as theyre not above 100 ppm dont worry about them unless you have sensitive fish which i dont think you do. if your doing anything over 25% water change more than once a week you will in the short run do more damage to your fish because you will stress them out because of such drastic water changes. just relax and let your tank fully cycle it will take of itself so long as you dont do more damage to it.

Ok I will relax. Thanks so much for the help

 

nitrates will almost never be at 0 dont worry about nitrates. theres lots of debates as to what levels of nitrates are acceptable but honestly as long as theyre not above 100 ppm dont worry about them unless you have sensitive fish which i dont think you do. if your doing anything over 25% water change more than once a week you will in the short run do more damage to your fish because you will stress them out because of such drastic water changes. just relax and let your tank fully cycle it will take of itself so long as you dont do more damage to it.

Hello there! Today my ammonia started to go down by its own. I’m happy! Thank you

 

Hello there! Today my ammonia started to go down by its own. I’m happy! Thank you

yup just let the beneficial bacteria grow and it will do its job you really shouldnt have to stress yourself out over it or nitrites so long as your tank is cycled it will be fine. My tank has been running for about 5 years and never have i had any traces of ammonia or nitrites on it and i do 10% water changes weekly. Good luck

 

yup just let the beneficial bacteria grow and it will do its job you really shouldnt have to stress yourself out over it or nitrites so long as your tank is cycled it will be fine. My tank has been running for about 5 years and never have i had any traces of ammonia or nitrites on it and i do 10% water changes weekly. Good luck

Do I need a heavy planted aquarium to do that?

 

Do I need a heavy planted aquarium to do that?

to keep ammonia and nitrites at 0? no you just need to make sure your filter is fully cycled and full of beneficial bacteria. and whenever you wash and clean the filter NEVER EVER was your biological media or to that matter any of the media you will keep using with anything else other than tank water. NEVER rinse or wash it with tap water you will be basically starting over again.
A heavily planted aquarium will in theory keep your NITRATES down ive read stories of some having 0 nitrates because of their planted aquariums but unless you know how to properly care for the plants it can backfire. I am no expert in plant keeping but from what i know and read plants obviously need special care such as fertilizer, light, mineral supplement and co2 system. If you overdo it with any of them or a combination of such it can lead to nasty algae, your fish dying from the extra dosing and other possible things.
Nitrates wont hurt your fish so long as there below 100 ppm. if your tap water is in essence 5ppm like i believe you said than weekly water changes will be enough to keep nitrates at an acceptable range. Many people overreact about nitrates i know i used to when i started but its not as big a deal as might have been lead to believe.

 

Do I need a heavy planted aquarium to do that?

This is my 55 as you can i only have 1 amazon sword plant and a about 2 other small plants and i just went ahead tested the water right now and you can see the top two readings second to top is the nitrites at 0 and the nitrates are around 80 but i aint worried cause like i said its not a big deal. and i havent lost a single fish in that tank.

 

...I am no expert in plant keeping but from what i know and read plants obviously need special care such as fertilizer, light, mineral supplement and co2 system. If you overdo it with any of them or a combination of such it can lead to nasty algae, your fish dying from the extra dosing and other possible things.

There are a great many plants in the hobby that require very little - some can not only survive without a CO2 system or added fertilizer, but can even survive on ambient light. Having any sort of light is enough to grow a variety of easy plants - it's not that complicated for many species.

Nitrates wont hurt your fish so long as there below 100 ppm. ... Many people overreact about nitrates i know i used to when i started but its not as big a deal as might have been lead to believe.

...the nitrates are around 80 but i aint worried cause like i said its not a big deal. and i havent lost a single fish in that tank.

It's great that you haven't lost any fish with triple digit nitrate readings, but most hobbyists recommend trying to keep nitrates below 40 PPM if possible, in an effort to not stress their livestock.

 

to keep ammonia and nitrites at 0? no you just need to make sure your filter is fully cycled and full of beneficial bacteria. and whenever you wash and clean the filter NEVER EVER was your biological media or to that matter any of the media you will keep using with anything else other than tank water. NEVER rinse or wash it with tap water you will be basically starting over again.
A heavily planted aquarium will in theory keep your NITRATES down ive read stories of some having 0 nitrates because of their planted aquariums but unless you know how to properly care for the plants it can backfire. I am no expert in plant keeping but from what i know and read plants obviously need special care such as fertilizer, light, mineral supplement and co2 system. If you overdo it with any of them or a combination of such it can lead to nasty algae, your fish dying from the extra dosing and other possible things.
Nitrates wont hurt your fish so long as there below 100 ppm. if your tap water is in essence 5ppm like i believe you said than weekly water changes will be enough to keep nitrates at an acceptable range. Many people overreact about nitrates i know i used to when i started but its not as big a deal as might have been lead to believe.

Thank you so much I really appreciate it, it made me chill.

 

This is my 55 as you can i only have 1 amazon sword plant and a about 2 other small plants and i just went ahead tested the water right now and you can see the top two readings second to top is the nitrites at 0 and the nitrates are around 80 but i aint worried cause like i said its not a big deal. and i havent lost a single fish in that tank.

I have lost 2 but don’t know why yet.

 

There are a great many plants in the hobby that require very little - some can not only survive without a CO2 system or added fertilizer, but can even survive on ambient light. Having any sort of light is enough to grow a variety of easy plants - it's not that complicated for many species.



It's great that you haven't lost any fish with triple digit nitrate readings, but most hobbyists recommend trying to keep nitrates below 40 PPM if possible, in an effort to not stress their livestock.

I’m trying to keep everything close to 0 because I lost 2 fish and that make so sad. I don’t know if is the ph with the temperature and the nitrates. But Im felling better because others have higher parameters en they fish are fine. But I really don’t understand what happened to mine.