Hi, and thanks in advance for your feedback. I have had a tank for about 9 months now that I took over from a friend. I recently bought a water testing kit and was shocked at the nitrate reading. Here's the info on my tank:

29 gallon freshwater with a moderate amount of live plants, and what I was told was live sand but not really live sand...(whatever that means). I have a Tanganyika cichlid, some sort of catfish (full grown about 5-6"), two loaches, some unidentified very skinny really long fish that looks like an eel, and 3 small 2-3" algae eaters. Oh, and until about a week ago I had about 1000 trumpet snails (I recently scooped out about 800 of them after they quickly got out of control). I have two double wheel biowheel filters, one of which is brand new. There is some algae in the tank but it's not out of control.

I change the carbon media about once a month or so and do 20% water changes about every 3 weeks. I am probably guilty of overfeeding a tad. I usually give 2 big pinches of cichlid flakes once per day, but I have started giving smaller pinches. This is the first time in 9 months that I have tested the water. My water pH is about an 8.0 and ammonia and nitrites stay at 0. Here's my problem:Nitrates on the other hand, tested 80ppm when I did the test last week. So I did a 30% water change immediately and tested again...still 80 ppm. Day 2 I (cleared the snails-about 800 of them!) and did another 30% water change and tested again...still 80 ppm. Day 3 I did a third 30% water change and STILL 80 ppm. Day 4 I did a 10% water change and again, I'm still at 80 ppm.

I tested the water from my tap and there are nitrates present, but only at about 5 ppm. I even mixed a gallon of tap water with the dechlorinator I use and the plant food I use and tested it in case the nitrate test was sensitive to those chemicals, and it tested at 5 ppm (no change from adding the dechlorinator and the plant food). I looked for a nitrate reducer at the pet store and wasn't able to find anything.

Does anyone have an idea as to why water changes aren't reducing the nitrates in my tank? A few of my friends from work who also have tanks keep yelling at me to stop changing the water and to just leave my tank alone because it is well established and has been for many years. I just can't bring myself to ignore the problem. I have a feeling it has to do with the sand, but was told by the previous owners that stirring up the sand may wind up killing the fish.

What should I do? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!! (My fish say thanks too

Are you using a liquid test kit, or strips?

I have also had some crazy nitrate problems myself but not quite like this. It almost makes you wonder how the fish are alive sometimes. I have a theory(not proven but I have experienced it like this) If you have a fish in water that slowly gains a nitrate problem over a long time, the nitrate wont have such a deadly affect on the fish because they have a chance to adapt to it. But you could see that they are lethal levels of nitrate when you try to add a new fish to the system and it dies right away. :(

I would try to clean the sand if it was my tank. I have run live sand in both fresh and salt water tanks and I can say that I like the look more than cleaning it. It is called live sand because of the large colonies of bacteria that live it it. I Use to clean mine slowly in my freshwater tank. Because the sand is so fine it is hard to vacuum like gravel but I have found if you start the siphon and crimp the hose with your hand you can "feather" the flow and keep most of the sand from getting sucked out. I would clean about 1/4 of the sand in my tank per water change. You will notice that when you clean sand it makes a mess of the tank so be careful not to stir it up too much cause it will be nasty. What does get sucked out you could rise and re-add it if you want, I just threw most of mine out (I wasn't losing much, maybe a tablespoon, so it wasn't worth the trouble).

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well only way you can lower nitrates is by doing water changes, but too many of them can kill the bacteria within the tank.. if you had so many snails, just think about all the poop that already built up EVERYWHERE in the tank... no fish eats poop..if the poop is left unattended...it will dissolve into millions of pieces in the water and good luck sucking that out..

phil_pl is right... live sand is pretty difficult to clean, if you siphon it. Your siphon tube will most likely suck some out and make your water foggy, but at long as your fish live, it's all good

High Nitrates over a long period of time can cause problems. Things may seem fine at first, but since everything is on the edge/stressed from the high nitrates, sometimes it takes the slightest thing and the entire tank gets sick....

Normally, water changes do reduce the Nitrates in the water... I'm confused as to why you Nitrates are still so high.... I was going to suggest testing your tap water, but since you've already done that.........

Do you ever vacuum the tank? Are you over feeding? How big is the Cichlid? What kind of Loaches are they and how large are they? (I'm thinking your tank could possibly be overstocked due to fish sizing and this may be contributing to the problem.) Do you use liquid tests or strip tests? If you can answer these questions, it will give us a little bit of info' towards helping you.

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I'd suggest that your water change schedule isn't adequate. You should do 30-50% every week to keep it in tip-top shape. Which test kit are you using? If 80ppm is the maximum reading, then you might be dealing with such high concentrations that your changes haven't brought them down enough. Doing daily water changes of 30% until the level comes down below 20ppm is a good idea (if you trust your readings). Good luck!

First you need to increase your water change schedule to at least once a week. Big water changes won't disrupt the bacteria as there is not that much in the water column. Most of it will be on hard surfaces, filters and substrate. Vac your sand 1/2 one week 1/2 the next. Even with 5 nitrates from the tap if you do at least 50 % you will cut your nitrates down by close to half. I would do 60% a week until you get it to where you should be.

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Thanks for the comments and advice. This issue has had me super stressed and determined to fix the problem since I discovered it. And if my fish could do any more than just swim around, I'm sure they would have fixed the problem themselves by now!

As far as the test methods, I first used a dip strip 5-in-1 test by Mardel. When I noticed how high the nitrates were, I purchased a master test kit made by API which I have been using since. It contained several different liquid tests. The API kit confirmed what the dip strip method read. The max reading on the dip strip is 200 ppm (my water was reading either 80 or 160 (the color was somewhere in between). The max for the API kit is 120 ppm. The last time or two that I tested the water, I even cut down my tank water with bottled water (1 part tank water and 3 parts bottled water and multiplied the number X4) to confirm the 80 ppm level.

I have not been vacuuming the sand, but I will try the method phil_pl described. I was hesitant to disturb the sand since the previous owners of the tank cautioned me to be carful not to disturb it too much.

My cichlid is about 3" long and about an inch tall. I honestly don't know what kind of loaches I have. One is striped and the other is spotted with stripes. They are no more than 3". Everyone in my tank should be full grown. (It's hard to know for sure since I acquired the tank from a friend.) The only additions I've made are the 3 small algae eaters, which are no more than 2" (I think I mentioned 2-3" for them earlier).

It's hard to know if I'm overfeeding since I'm still kinda a newbee. I have been giving two good sized pinches once per day. I've been told I'm overfeeding by fish owners that watch me feed my fish, and so I can't deny that. The last month or so, I've put effort into reducing the size of my pinches. When I first got the tank, everyone would come out of hiding at feeding time, but now only my cichlid does. Should I skip a day and reduce to 1 pinch a day??

Thank you all so much, I am honestly very grateful for the advice!!

dont skip anything. Just make sure you feed them WAY LESS than what you are feeding them. Not only that, make sure you get rid of those snails... they poop A LOT like plecos.. now only that but their slime also adds up in the tank and might throw off readings.. If readings are stable, your fish will be fine, but if they're unstable, they will get stressed and easily catch a disease. High nitrates arent too bad, but at 80 ppm, it better be a liquid test, then you will need to do daily water changes, make sure you stir up the gravel as you siphon.. i guarantee theres poop inside of it mixed up

Agreed to feed less. Just a small pinch is fine. If you think about it, fish don't eat every day in the wild right? They just eat when and if they find food that day.

I was feeding once a day, but have heard from many people on this site, that even that is unnecessary (for the fish I have anyway, and that there are benefits to the bio filter in feeding every other day or every few days), so I now feed every other day. Every one is still very healthy and happy.

A hungry fish is an alive fish - a super full fish, generally leads to problems, lol.

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make sure there isn't any dead leafs from the plants decaying leaves will lead to a nitrate spike

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first of all im going to say this and will get nailed for this,but IMO live sand should never be used in a freshwater tank..live sand is what it is live sand..it has living saltwater organisms living in it that are normally found in saltwater which cant be sustained in freshwater..but being it been up for 9 months you have already killed that off so thats not your problem..i would try to reduce your snail population and your catfish and probably your loaches are way to big for a 29 gallon tank..the catfish alone will produce alot of waste..

Rick

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Why couldn't that be the problem? Wouldn't it now just be a big pile of dead organisms? I wouldn't even begin to guess when the nagative effects from that would go away. Why would anyone try to use that?

Water changes will reduce but not eliminate things that are building up in the tank. You may not notice the reduction do to limitations of the test kit. 80ppm nitrates are a very normal and realizable level.

In order to get nitrates down to unmeasureable levels you have to increase nitrate consumers so that the nitrates being produced are being consumed. The bio wheels (with the algae in them) are a step in the right direction as is the plants. So increase those especially fast growing plants like anacharis.

Another consideration is that your existing plant life my be consuming ammonia instead of nitrates. In that case the plants are doing their job. As aerobic bacterial build up to consume the ammonia, the plants will then start consuming nitrates to get their nitrogen. But it can take a few weeks.

So you might consider feeding less as well as adding more plants.


just my .02

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because it look way better in a tank while clean than regular playsand does..and people think in time it will just revert back to regular sand which eventually it will, but its gonna take awhile..

Rick

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You should be sure you know what you are talking about before giving advice.
I can't find anywhere where he says it is saltwater live sand.

29 gallon freshwater with a moderate amount of live plants, and what I was told was live sand but not really live sand...(whatever that means)

first post ..second paragraph..so you should read more carefully before you post i dont know what im talking about

Rick

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It does not say SALTWATER LIVESAND AND THERE IS LIVE SAND BY CARIB-SEA FOR BOTH FRESH AND SALTWATER

Tone it down guys

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