Tropical Fish Keeping banner

Help! Nitrate spike in established tank

Tags
nitrate spike
2K views 3 replies 4 participants last post by  SeaHorse 
#1 ·
Hi all

I'm hoping you can provide me with some help and guidance. We have an 89 litre bout tank. It's about three years old and has been cycled for about the same time.

The nitrate levels have been stable at 20 for months. We've now had a sudden spike.

I did a water change on Saturday (usually do a third water change every 2-3weeks) and tested the water rates a few hours after the change. Nitrates were down low.

Then last night I noticed the fish were clamping fins. Took a water test last night and nitrate was at 80!

Why? No new fish added recently.

I guess daily water changes will bring it down?

Please help
 
#2 ·
Hmm.. sorry to hear your troubles.

Could be a number of reasons why your nitrate is so high now.. The fish in the tank may finally becoming more bigger, thus adding to more bioload and nitrate, also, maybe you feed a lot excessively.. :) You'd best do a very large water change right now to get it to about 5 - 10ppm while carefully making sure the temps remain stable and not get too high or low. So water change, feed less, and maybe remove some stock. Water changes should help with clamped fins, adding melafix would help a bit too.
 
#4 ·
Sorry you are having troubles. Did you test your tap water to see if you have Nitrates there? Just a thought.... you can't lower it if they are found in the source water. Probably not likely but you should check.

AND I think the NitrATe test is 2 bottles.... shaken 5 min? and WE MEAN SHAKE for 5 min. I think you need to shake the sediment in the bottle before testing too. This is the one test that can read wrong very easily if the instructions aren't followed. Just hints to help solve the issue.

Good Luck. and Welcome !!
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top