# Nitrate Levels though he roof.



## steelzuk (Aug 4, 2010)

My api fresh water test kit came through the post this morning and the test has resulted in high nitrite and high pH.
I was totally unaware as I usually get the water tested at the pet store and the last test 3 weeks ago resulted in slight ammonia, that's it!

Here or my test results...

*pH - 8.2
Nitrite - 5.0ppm ++ (the colour is darker than any thing on the sheet)
Ammo - 0.25pp
Nitrate - 20ppm
*
I'm surely not over feeding them am I?? I have 8 corys and a plec and I give them 8 small kingbritish catfish pellets and a algae disk for the plec daily and 1 small piece of cucumber every week. 
I do a 30% water change every Wednesday using a gravel cleaner which I must say brings a lot of particles from the gravel.

My tank does not contain any real plants just plenty of bogwood for the plec. I am also treating the tank with melafix for fin rot on the plec (now i know why he got it!  )

Can some one please help me? am i going to loose my fish?


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## steelzuk (Aug 4, 2010)

Sorry I forgot to say I tested my tap water and the nitrite levels are 0


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## petlovingfreak (May 8, 2009)

How long has your tank been set up? If it's a newly set up tank, than I'd say it's not cycled all the way.


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## pinetree (Nov 29, 2009)

If it has been set up and cycled for awhile, something may have happened to cause the cycle to be interrupted and now it is trying to recycle. I'd start doing some frequent water changes to get the nitrites and ammonia down. With such a high pH, ammonia is very toxic even in small amounts.

Usually to protect against nitrite poisoning, or brown blood disease, I would recommend adding 1 tsp aquarium salt per gallon. HOWEVER, I don't know if plecos are tolerant of salt, so wait until someone with pleco experience chimes in before doing that.


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## Obsidian (May 20, 2007)

2 things come to mind right off:

1 an uncycled tank
2 the Melafix is wrecking havoc with your bacteria. This is not a common thing for it to do as it is more natural than most but since it is an antibacteria med it would be possible. 

The bad water levels are part of why the fish got the fin rot, but also part of why it is not getting better. For the moment you want to pull the meds from the tank by putting the activated charcoal back into the filter. 

At 5.0 or higher that is beyond off the charts so I would first run this test again. It is not uncommon to get a misread (I had one that read really high when there was actually none in there... that was with API. Retesting proved the first test wrong LOL). If it continues to test that high then personally I would do a massive water change. Yes it causes stress but they are already stressed to the point of being in danger of dying. When I say massive I mean like 80% then 50% a day until it comes down to about 1ppm then 10-20% until it gets back below .5ppm. 

When you do this change you will want to do a good vac on the first change, but not after that. You need to not feed the fish for the next 2-3 days. They will be fine with that, no worries about it. 

Also make sure you are testing daily as it is possible it will make a turn for the better fairly quickly. If it does then you would want to adjust the water change schedule.


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## Revolution1221 (Apr 20, 2010)

i know this probably isn't it and more likely the med thing but when i first started keeping fish i was making the mistak of constantly testing my water imdediately after a water change. for some reason it must have been causing faulse positives. I couldn't figure it out for like 3 weeks my readings were off the charts. Someone mentioned it to me and i waited two days after a water change and sure enough my levels were all zero.


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## Obsidian (May 20, 2007)

2 days probably isn't necessary but I would wait several hours. don't just change then test right off, the water hasn't had a chance to level itself out. After a few hours you should have a pretty good idea.


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## Revolution1221 (Apr 20, 2010)

Obsidian said:


> 2 days probably isn't necessary but I would wait several hours. don't just change then test right off, the water hasn't had a chance to level itself out. After a few hours you should have a pretty good idea.


yeah that was like the first 3 weeks after adding fish to my first aquarium i didn't understand what was happening it was very frustrating because before that my tank was completely cycled and i was freaking out using nitraban lol. im pretty sure my water was so stirred up that i was even getting waste and peices of leftover food into the water sample but that was when i knew nothing of fish keeping so i didn't really fully understand the whole process.


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## steelzuk (Aug 4, 2010)

Thanks guys, sorry for the late response.
I think I may have found the fault, my girlfriend told me the following night that the power had tripped when she got home that day (at least 4 hours), the man at the tropical centre told me undergravel filters can be deadly if there left off for a certain period. The nitrates are slowly dropping with the water changes I'm down to 5.0pp now, as an emergency I used some 'Seachem Prime' to lower the nitrite and 'Neutral Regulator' for the pH which also is dropping slowly (currently on 7.6 same as my tap water).
Since the drop in nitrate my plec seems to be curing itself without medication but I have melafix and pimafix ready.

Is there anything I am doing wrong or should know?
Thanks again for the help everyone!

Steelz


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## Revolution1221 (Apr 20, 2010)

i dont know why an undergravel shutting off would be any different from a regular filter shutting off but i could be wrong. Ive had mine go out for 5-6 hours at a time with no spike in my levels. and with your fish stock so low i find it hard to believe that they could really have that much of an impact in such a short period of time because my fish stock was way higher when it happened to me. but like i said i could be wrong i just think it may have more to do with the meds being at fault like obsidian said.


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

UGs, like canisters can collect a lot of waste and go "anaerobic" when the flow is off. I think it can go backwards, nitrate to nitrite to ammonia or break down solids to produce HS. I've never lost fish from one, but its just another reason to keep you filters somewhat clean. If a canister has been off even as little as overnight, its a good idea to dump it and clean it and fill with clean water before you turn it on again.


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## Revolution1221 (Apr 20, 2010)

wow i didnt know it could happen that fast but i suppose thats a good thing to know.


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## steelzuk (Aug 4, 2010)

Cheers guys Ill keep you updated on the situation, I have the fluval filter running too now with the carbon out


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## steelzuk (Aug 4, 2010)

Hi guys, I've been doing daily 20% water changes with the gravel vac and adding 'Prime', the nitrites are dropping but still high...

pH 7.6
Nitrate 40ppm
Nitrite 5.00 ppm
Ammonia 0.25

Shall I just keep up the water changes?


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## pinetree (Nov 29, 2009)

Your nitRATEs don't look bad to me. It is your nitRITEs that I would be concerned about. Fish can tolerate 40ppm nitRATEs, but 5ppm nitRITEs is bad.


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## steelzuk (Aug 4, 2010)

pinetree said:


> Your nitRATEs don't look bad to me. It is your nitRITEs that I would be concerned about. Fish can tolerate 40ppm nitRATEs, but 5ppm nitRITEs is bad.


sorry wrote it wrong lol


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