We have a problem with very high nitrates all of a sudden.
Lately we have been feeding our fish brine shrimp and black worms instead of the flakes... It went from being a treat once ina while to all the time.
We dont OVERFEED, we give them the same amount as always just not flakes lately. Could that cause nitrate levels to spike?

Just a thought...

Thanks!!

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It could, potentially. Anything uneaten would fall to the bottom and decompose, and decomposing live food is a much bigger ammonia-generator than flake food.

Or your fish could be eating more and pooping out more that will generate ammonia :/

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Officially fishless until after the move....tune in later for details!

Lol all food causes nitrates to go up. I did the same thing when i switch my fish off flakes, you feel like your being so nice to them and they love it so much but in the end your just mucking up the tank.

Well thats the thing. We dont have an ammonia problem whatsoever. And believe it or not and I sware im not just saying this (because we use to have an ammonia issue when we first started the tank) when we feed them, we give them small portions at a time to make sure none falls to the bottom. And we dont feed them MORE, just different food. I dunno. I guess Ill try flakes from now on. Its just that certain ones adapted to the live food and kind of shuns away from the flakes like theyre too good or something lol.

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Nitrates are the natural product of the decomposition of Protien. Any food, whether it is flake or fresh, will generate Nitrates. Excess Nitrates can be easily generated by over feeding, overcrowding, or fish deaths. The easiest way to deal with excess Nitrates is through water changes. To avoid shock, change no more than 20-30% at a time. Nitrate levels greater thean 80 mg/l are considered excessive.

Now I been told that adding shrimp will clean up any leftovers or like I did and got some cory cats no less than 5 they are schooling fish...

Test your tank water source. We couldn't figure out why our tank had such incredibly high nitrates, then found out that our water has 80ppm Nitrates from the tap. Sometimes throughout the year, water changes a bit. So, where you didn't have Nitrates in the water before, you do now. (Few ppl on this site, as well as the LFS guy have said that many people have had steady water sources for years, but at certain times of the year, the params' will fluctuate for some reason.) Could be temp' or weather I guess....

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