If another member already posted what I said, I didn't catch it when I read over the thread.......
Do you have gravel or
sand substrate?
Do you use a gravel siphon vac to clean the substrate at every water change?
A build up of uneaten food and fish waste will contribute to nitrate build up.
Is it possible you or someone else in the household overfeeds the tank?
I actually have large river rocks which, now I know aren't good at all, but I set up his tank when I was very new to this. I'll be moving him to a bigger tank with smaller gravel.
I siphon pretty much every time I do water changes, sometimes there will be a lot of waste, sometimes barely nothing. I'm the only one that feeds him and I don't think I'm over feeding, I might need to work harder on siphoning out food he doesn't eat after two minutes?
20ppm is fine water change once a week stop worrying .
Loachlover357 when testing your nitrates put the vial right on top of the color chart. If you can see the color it’s the last one you can’t see . Colors are way to close to be guessing.
I didn't know 20ppm is okay, so that's a relief, but the levels rise way too quickly. From week to week it'll go from 20ppm to 80 or in the 100s.
Periodically I’ll use nitrate pads in my canister to control mine until I can naturally getm under control.
That's a good idea, I wasn't sure if something like that existed, I couldn't find anything. Thank you!
20 ppm is not bad. Weekly 25-50% water changes (depending on stocking/ bioload), keeping your filter media free of gunk and debris, avoiding overfeeding, good aeration and regular maintenance and cleaning of impellers and intake and outflow tubing will help. Keeping Up with Nitrate | Details | Articles |
Some more delicate species like discus, invertebrates and some fry require that nitrate levels be maintained at lower levels (5-20 ppm) but in general, if you keep your nitrates around 20, your fish will do fine.
Thank you for the details c: His filter used to be cleaner as of late but it used to always build up a ton of gunk from week to week... I know
goldfish are messy but I don't think it's supposed to get that bad that quickly?? I don't think I over feed but it could be that I'm not siphoning the food out quick enough or carefully enough?
I think you are causing yourself unnecessary stress levels. 20 isn't too high. A lot of folks would be happy if they could get and keep theirs down that low.
If you really feel like you have to keep them lower get some
nitra-Zorb and put it in your filter. It will absorb the nitrates. It is one product I bought and actually posted a review of it here on the forum because it works.
I struggled to keep mine 40 or below in my over stocked tank. The nitra-zorb keeps them down close to 20.
I don't generally worry when it's at 20ppm but it gets way to high way to quickly, no matter what I try to keep them down :c Thank you for the rec, I wasn't sure if things like that existed! I'll make sure to try it on top of working even harder to keep his tank cleaned.
Every water change will reduce everything above zero by the percentage of the water change. Twenty five percent water change will reduce everything by 25%. Twenty ppm will be 15ppm. Fifty percent WC will take 20ppm down to 10ppm, etc. Water changes are the fastest way to lower any bad
water parameters.
What are you using to
test your water? Strips are notoriously inaccurate. API Freshwater Master seems to be the most common liquid test, but if you're using that, be darn sure to shake the living daylights out of solution #2, as the directions say.
Just my $.02, and I wish you the best of luck
I've always used API freshwater master! I used to not understand how important shaking it was, now I definitely do lol
I try to do water changes as often as possible but it seems the nitrates are rising way too quickly for me to keep up. His in a 20 gal tank, the bare minimum for an oranda, but he's grown quite a bit. Could it be he's too big for his tank and it's making it dirtier quicker?? I'm setting up a bigger tank for him asap but I can't move him for awhile, I don't want him to die before I can make the change.
Have you tested your tap water? Some peoples tap has nitrates in the tap so that could be why it isn't getting lower with water changes.
Edit: Also overfeeding could contribute to your issue but waterchanges & siphoning the gravel should show a change in the nitrate levels if that was the case.
What test kit are you using?
I haven't tested my tap water, that's a good idea. What would I do if the tap water was high in nitrates?
I have been doing water changes and siphoning but it climbs too quickly. I used an API freshwater master kit.
