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well in one of my tanks has high nitrates i have done water changes after water change and nothing has happened! the fish in there are guppies/tetras! plez help is there anything i can add to keep them down or just keep doing water changes! here is the pirimeters
ammonia 0

nitrite 0

nitrate 80

o ya and i have added live plants!

High nitrates even after huge water changes may indicate that your tank is overstocked, or that you are overfeeding.

What is in your tank? What size tank is it?

yep,thats what i was afraid of, see it is not really MY tank i kinda sold it to my brother they problem is overfeeding! i sat down to have a talk with him about the reasons for high nitrates and that was one of the ?s i asked! !BINGO! he said he feeds them like every time he goes in his room i cant do anything to stop it except tell him! they tank is a 10 gallon and has 2 guppies and 5 tetras! it has hornwort and other plants! im not sure if he is listening but it did go down quite a bit it used to be 160 now it is only 80 i do help him but i think he sneak food or something! should i tell him to stop! there is know algea probs! thanks for the help!

Those levels sound like the levels at the store! The African systems and the Tetra systems are consistently at 200+ ppm. I guess the whole system is way overstocked. They are all fed daily, but before, they weren't fed, so we weren't used to having nitrate problems. However, the former manager was fired and now we're feeding again. The nitrates are high even though we do about 33% water changes every other day.

i have high nitrates as well i use amquel+. you can get it at petco. it lowers the ammonia nitrite and nitrate levels just like it says it does. its a good product and its less of a hasle than doing water changes. but i still do scheduled water changes.

thanks ,OB, the person at the lfs said it dont really work but i believe you more than them! so i think i will give it a try!

i dont see any reason for any employee that works at a fish store should have any use for products like amquel+. they should know how to avoid toxic levels of ammonia nitrite and nitrate. so if they tell you that it dont work its because more then likely they havent tried the product themselves and are going based on what customer that have no clue has told them. i was told by some guy at a lfs that the kind of hang on filters that i have are not good biological filters. but because of the removeable grid that it has it allows bacteria to establish it self and remain undisturbed and because of that it keeps my ammonia and nitrite levels at 0, so i know it works not to mention that i have cichlids and we know how messy they are. im willing to try anything that works more than once and if it doesnt then i dont bother with it. but i have test kits that prove and show the results of treatment. one thing though that i read on the label of amquel is if you ever come accross high ammonia and use amquel as treatment based on what kind of test kits you have you might still read positive for amonnia. amquel+ doesnt remove ammonia,it simply converts it to a non toxic waste. other than that it works purdy good

[span class="edited"][Edited by 2004-07-03 23:34][/span]

How about something like "nitra-zorb." It's a pouch that absorbs nitrates, I think.

I have used nitrazorb it is ok for small amounts of nitrate removal but if you have a high nitrate reading it will take many recharges to get it down,horn wort worked faster.

Gibson SG you know you want one!!

i have a little hornwort in there i think i will add a ton more! that stuff seems to work beutiful for my other tank!

Is your nitrate test old? If you test 80ppm, do a 50% water change and test 80ppm nitrate, I would think about getting a new test kit.

Amquel plus and other nitrate/nitrite detoxifiers are nice, but not nearly as nice as clean water. Tell your brother if he doesn't stop overfeeding the fish, you're going to hide behind the door and punch him in the gut. Negative reinforcement always worked on MY brother. Don't wrestle around the fishtank though.

lol@Jake

Nope not old for beans only a couple weeks old! we havent been doing 50% so i will try that! itstead of that i will threaten to punch him in the gut and then take the fish tank

Products like Amquel + are too often used as a substitute for good tank maintenance and proper fish care. Save your money, don't buy these *miracle fixes* and invest your time in learning a little more about what it takes to have good water quality without these crutches. Fish1, the only really good advice I've seen in this thread was that given by jake.

Good luck with the tank, and teach your brother a lesson for us. ]

Every once in a while when you do a water change, wash your media (sponge) out in the tank water. If crud builds up enough on that thing the nitrates will just keep coming.

Ok well i added some hornwort from my tank and got myself a AMOZON SWORD i will try a 50% water change! i now have them on a strict feed once every 3 dies diet which is what the fish were used to before he came along! but this might stop when the nitrates go down!