We put the water in on the 16th of October, had it tested today and our nitrates were HIGH, like almost as high as they can be, we bought a plant to help, does anyone have any other suggestions?
2006-10-29 06:00:00 · 8 answers · asked by momma whitley 2 in Pets ➔ Fish
Oh, i'm glad you don't have any fish in the tank yet.
If you don't have any power filters or canister filters, go and get one (Aquaclear, Whisper, penguin, emperor filters) works good, they will try to get the nirtrates down.
The number of Nitrates is too high, try to test your tap water to compare. If your tap water has high number of nitrates, you know who's to blame. The thing you can do is let the tank to cycle with no fishes in your tank for about a month to two months and do 20% water changes a week. Also make sure your tank have enough circulation (concept, the tank should circulate 6 times per hour for freshwater and 10 times per hour for salt water.) For example: 50 gallon tank should have filter that can circulate water 6 times equals 300 gallon per hour. The more circulation the water nitrates will fall down slowly. By the time you add fish, add cheapest kind of fish like neon tetras to test the water.
Plant will help but not much.
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This paragraphs below is just added many hours later...
I just found out by researching a lot in last few hours cuz i was bored.
You have high Nitrates due to dirty gravel or sand. you should have rinse them in cold water before you put the gravel/sand in. Since the gravel or sand is already in the tank, put your hand in the tank and swirl the gravel and let the filter do its job. Just be aware that SAND will choke your filters so just clean your filter repeatly every half hour until the water become clear, then do it again (swirl the sand/gravel). It will help to reduce the nitrates level and do some water change as well.
If you have undergravel filter system, I'd recommend buy a powerhead that can be drown in the tank and install the filter pocket on the intake part and the output (where water is comiing from) in the undergravel filter tube, it will help to push the dirty (poop and food) off the gravel then the nasty thing will go to your big filter like canister filter or the over the head filters like Aquaclear or other type of filter. (or buy a powerhead that will do a reverse method blowing water into the undergravel filter system). I do enjoy having Powerheads in the past, the powerhead i have and are fanstatic from Hagen.
It WILL be worth in long run and keep your nitrates and ammonia level near to zero.
HOPE my research helps you a lot and it did help me quite well (new information for me ) I'm out of this hobby for 5 years and going back to this hobby soon!
2006-10-29 06:25:34 · answer #1 · answered by Stanley T 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
That sounds like a pretty good budget. Shop around. Call petstores see if they offer deals. When I bought my 75 gallon and stand I went to the store that offered a 20% discount on anything fish-related if you buy a tank. The tank actually cost more there but the discount on the filter, gravel, plants... saved me a lot of money. I ended up spending about $600 that day. Get the largest tank you can afford. It may be $40 more for a 55 gallon set up- It is worth it. Your priorities should be the tank, substrate and filter. The tank needs time to cycle so you can wait till' the next pay check to worry about aquascaping and any fish. Another thing you really need to think about is what type of fish you are interested in. This will change some of your needs. If you are looking at a few goldfish or Cichlids then you will want fake plants. If you are looking at community tropical then maybe you should get some live plants in there and get appropriate lighting. Advice I always give to new aquarium owners is find the right fish for you first. We don't buy a dog kennel and then try to find a dog breed that will fit in that kennel. You shouldn't choose your fish that way either. Maybe you really like angels- 30 gallons is big enough for about 3. They will probably out grow that even. Make sure you are not buying too early. Maybe you should wait a month spend $600 and get your fantasy tank with sand, live plants, discus and freshwater stingrays. Well- that's my fantasy.
2016-05-22 05:37:11 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Snails will NOT lower nitrates. Like any other animal, they simply add more waste to the tank. The only way nitrates can be removed is by adding live plants (good job on getting a real plant, they are loads of fun and look so much better!) or by doing water changes. Ammonium nitrate is essentially just plant fertilizer, so the plants will definitely help.
SInce your nitrates are extremely high right now, I would recommend doing a 50% water change, and next week do a 35% water change. After that, change 25% of the water every week. Also, add more plants to the tank. Fast-growing species like Anacharis would Water Wisteria be excellent, because they are very hardy and suck up nitrates like a vacuum.
Making sure you feed the tank sparingly will also help lower nitrates. When you feed the fish, if any food is left over floating around the tank after about two minutes, you are overfeeding them. It is much better to underfeed fish (which is very hard to do) than to overfeed them, so if you think you are possibly feeding them too much, you probably are.
Hope that helps, and good luck with your tank.
2006-10-29 06:31:42 · answer #3 · answered by give_me_more_drugs675 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
That's kinda strange. Are you sure it's nitrAtes and not nitrItes? I could see if the nitrites were high in that amount of time, but not the other.
Are you doing a fishless cycle or did you add fish already? If there's no fish, what did you use for an ammonia source to start the cycle? Did you add anything else chemical wise or whatever to the tank? I'm asking because you may just have high nitrates in your tap water, but I thought they had to be regulated/not over a certain amount. Prime made by Seachem is good for detoxifying ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates, as well as removing chlorine & chloramine from tap water.
2006-10-29 06:24:25 · answer #4 · answered by tikitiki 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
did u put dechlorinater in? Or water stabiliser in? If you did that's all i can think of,
good luck with your new tank!
2006-10-29 07:13:24 · answer #5 · answered by Grace H 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
get some filter moss quickly and do a water change and stop feeding so much.
2006-10-29 06:07:33 · answer #6 · answered by rhino_man420 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Snails help
2006-10-29 06:04:59 · answer #7 · answered by eugene65ca 6 · 0⤊ 2⤋
snails and more plants.
2006-10-29 06:14:53 · answer #8 · answered by sup yo 5 · 0⤊ 2⤋