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"High Nitrates"? need a bit of help..

R

Rasp

Seedling
Joined
9 Jul 2010
Messages
4
Location
North East
*sorry for the essay*
Hello all,
I believe this is my first post but i've been browsing for a few years now. I shut down my tank after not having time to do the required maintenance on it and it all going to pot. It was sat empty for a while and I had planned on turning it in to a paludarium but a tank cracking (nice 50+litres of water in my dining room carpet) has caused an emergency set up and now wanting to have another attempt at getting it nice again.

So, here is where I am really wracking my brains and trying to sort out the rubbish from what could have really gone wrong.

The tank is 125litres, filter outputs about 300lph. We have a few new plants in and I started dosing a made up EI solution; macro one day, trace the next etc. etc. as you all know it goes. I found the recipe online and figured it would be a good start until we could see how the plants reacted to it then adjust it accordingly.

We bought some new fish last week and over the last three days (started Saturday morning) we have so far lost ten fish. I did a water change before adding the fish - didn't test it before though because we rarely ever do - The filter has been running on this tank then our cracked one for years now so completely established. The water parameters were reading (on our kit) Ammonia: 0, Nitrite: 0, Nitrate: ~20, PH: 7.2. I went to the lfs with a sample of water and our really nice betta splenden who had perished that morning in a bag so they could check for disease (pee'd off didn't even cover it)

They tested the water and said the following:

- Amm: 0, Ni: 0, Na: 60+, PH: 7.2.

- I'd changed too much water and had probably polluted it with something (about 40%)

- I mentioned the plants to try and explain why i'd changed so much so then it was said i'd overdosed the tank with nitrates.

- The fish hadn't shown ANY signs of sickness or disease - they are literally fine one minute then dropping like flies.

In the god knows how many years i've had tanks running i've had high nitrates before and it has never affected the fish before. I rarely even test for Nitrates - normally just ammonia and nitrites - when we actually do a test because how reliable are nitrate tests anyway?

So stressed, so upset and already so fed up. I'm trying to do water changes in case this guy was correct but worried about the plants and how much it's messing up the ferts. Ugh!
 
Sorry to hear about your losses :( I think it's unlikely that high nitrates are to blame.
A few questions...
Is your water hard or soft? If you're not sure you can look on your water company's website which should tell you.
What fish were already in the tank and what new fish did you buy?
Is it only the new fish that have died?
 
My Lfs doesn't understand the concept of large water changes or adding nitrates either.

Exactly how much of each of the macro/micro ingredients are you adding?

I don't think that doing frequent water changes is a problem if there might be a issue with the water chemistry. I would consider getting a more powerful filter though - 300lph for a 125l tank is a bit small for a planted tank.
 
You did cycle the tank first, before adding fish ? In my experience unless the ammonia kit is a specialist ammonia only kit ie not a test strip, it will be wrong and you will have ammonia present.
 
Nightmare.
A few things occured to me.
You say you bought some new fish and 10 have died. How many did you add in one go? It is always best to slowly build up stocking levels to give filters a chance to adapt to the bio load. I have a 350l tank and have rarely added more 6 fish at once with a week or more between additions.
Water changes are usually only a good thing (ignore what the LFS said),but you did dechlorinate it didn't you.
Your filter is not huge for that size of tank, not clear from your post what the time scale is, but if it was turned off for a while then capacity to remove ammonia could have taken a knock. How long was it back up and running before you added any fish to the tank?
Also, if the filter is a bit old, or packed full of media, or a bit clogged you might have a lot less than 300lph.
People on this forum have reported overdosing EI many times with no probs, So unlikely to be related to that, and if they are anything like all of my LFS, yours won't even know what EI is.
But I would you suggest you stop adding anything and do several water changes of about 20-25% every couple of days, making sure the water is dechlorinated and correct temp, don't add any more fish for a few weeks and in the meantime scrutinise your remaining fish for signs of disease
Good luck.
 
The filter is cycled, it was originally cycled with media from my old external years ago which was originally fishless-cycled.

Sorry! i got the lph totally wrong - its 1000lph, not 300. Not sure where i got that from! The filter has always ran on a tank. The media baskets aren't overpacked and they get a thorough cleaned out at least once a month in old tank water.

I've only ever used API drop tests, not the strips. The only difference between the two tests was the nitrate.

Yes, all water was dechorinated.

I don't know about the water hardness, I believe it is a soft area though because we don't have issues with limescale. I made up solutions following fluid sensors EI calculator to make up two 2 litre bottles. However, i only added a third of the magnesium sulphate because i wasn't sure about the water hardness.

The fish: We bought 5 black neon tetra's and two otto's last week. A week before we had got 5 danio's and a few days before that the Betta. Danio's, betta and 4/5 tetra's are all dead.

There are no fish dead today (yet). We have one tetra, a three year old Khuli loach, four harlequins and 3 mountain minnows left (which moved over from the old cracked tank). I did a small water change last night but i am so scared of changing water at the minute. No plans for anything new so hopefully we can get this sorted. The thought of the amount of money we have spent and are potentially going to lose is making me ill
 
We haven't started CO2 yet. I was considering going yeast again this week (used to use it a long time ago) until we can get a sodastream system sorted but this has all knocked me back a bit. Not sure what to do!

ETA: Totally forgot, we've been using Flourish Excel which is why i've been considering yeast bottles instead
 
Hi, really sorry to hear of your troubles.
What are the fish looking like in the shop where you bought them? Are they still well or have their numbers diminished rapidly? It could just be an unfortunate case of bad stock, especially given your existing stock is unaffected.
Ottos are notoriously poor at adapting after shipping, but the rest should be ok if the stock is good. I'd have a look at the shop stock again, if all is well there then you can start investigating what has happened in your tank.
There is a possibility that it was too many too fast. Your old filter will only have had a balanced bio population for the existing stock and needs time to build upto populations of bacteria to deal with the extra wastes from more fish stock. However with large frequent water changes this is slightly irrelevant with the numbers we are talking here.
Water changes are a good thing, and newly set up systems rely on them heavily until things get established. I'd be doing one every other day for at least a week, then ease off slowly after that if all is well.
Don't give up, it will come good.
Cheerio
Ady
 
Hello again,

No, there were no fish gasping at the top. I haven't been back to the shop since i took the water sample because it's quite a trip there. There was a guy in at the same time with a Molly that was looking quite sorry for itself.

I've been dosing the excel according to the bottles instructions every 2nd day.

We are on day 4 with no dead fish so I am not counting heads every hour now, only every morning and night... and maybe at dinner time too ;) I have a bad wrist and flared it up trying to lift a bucket so i haven't done a water change since Tuesday. Haven't dosed any ferts either :( Think it is time I picked myself back up from this though and started from scratch.
 
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