Extreme High Nitrates

[vanessa messig]

Hello,
Can anyone help me please? my nitrates are 80ppm and am worried they will go higher. I have 4 medium and 2 small discus, 3 corys and a small to medium pleco, a few plants just starting to show a little growth, white sand and I do a quarter of my 6 foot tank water change every week, I have two eheim large filters, two logs. I check my PH every second day and try to adjust it as it seems to work its way down all the time. Nitrites and Amo. are zero. I am not sure what I am doing wrong with the Nitrates.

Thank you.

[jesx57]

You need to do a water change to get those nitrates down. If the problem persists, maybe you will need to do 2x water change every week. As for your pH, I use a bit of crushed coral to keep my pH up, but I don't know how that would go with discus.

[Greggy]

Add hardy and fast growing plants to help combat the NO3.

Regards,

Greggy

[JoeDiscus85]

Amazon swords did the trick for me, Plus they multiply really fast.


Joe

[vanessa messig]

Thank you.. I have just added some Seachem 'Safe' after the water change today and hope it helps for the time being while I order some more plants, I have never used crushed coral but will give it a try.
I had noticed my blue snakeskin was the only discus breathing a little too fast so I have to act asap.

Thanks again everyone!

[taksan]

Its quite simple ...your not doing large or frequent enough water changes

[vanessa messig]

Hello,
does anyone know how long it takes for the nitrates to go right down to low? I have been doing water changes every two/three days, have added some zeolite to one of the filters and its still pretty high, just over 40. I only have four healthy discus left, 3 corys and a doz cardinals with new plants in a 6ft tank. I am worried with all the water changes that I could be stressing the discus too much.

[vyberman]

Nitrates dont go down to low over time. nitrates are the end product of the bio filter process. They will always go up.

As taksan said, you need to up the amount of water you change and do it much more often.

Zeolite wont do a lot really.
But somthing i have been using with a lot of success is fluval lab series nitrate remover.

Its a granular polymer that you place in your filter canister. It somehow sucks nitrates out of the water. Once a week i take it out and place it in salty water, and the salt draws the nitrate out of the polymer.

One tub takes 25ppm out of 189L of water according to the tub.

But having said that, this is NOT a substitue for water changes, they are essential, and by the sound of it you need to do more.

With 40ppm in the water if you do a 50% change this will still only take you down to 20ppm
Another 50% change will take you to 10ppm and so on.

[vanessa messig]

I am working on it! Thanks Vyberman, I have finally got it down to 20ppm and I'm rapt. Just hope the discus are not too stressed.

I will try to find the fluval lab series nitrate remover, sounds like a good thing to have handy, the problem is the aquarium stores I visit are not very helpful and they do not stock specialised products.

Thanks again for your help.

[rwel4809]

Try the Chemical Filteration section on the sponsors site... they can post...

http://www.aquariumsuppliesaustralia.com.au/store/cart.php?m=product_list&c=131

HTH

Robert

[vanessa messig]

Thanks Robert, I found it and have just ordered it.

Kind Regards,