I have a probelm with my water, nitrates are reading 250 and ph is 6.2, no dead bodies did a water change 2 days ago and not over feeding, fish are not distressed and the frt is fine, any ideas?

If as you say everything else is fine ,then there is only two things I can think of, and they are obvious, either your test was faulty or your water from your water change was contaminated.( road works , flushing the pipes etc) the water coming through my main contained 100 ppm phosphate . do another water change, but test the new water before you put it in .


if that was the reading in my marine tanks I would be in hospital now, after having a heart attack lol.

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senile old git

I tested the tap water before it went in and i have two test kits, both say the same, tap water is no3 10ppm and ph 7

the only other thing I can think of then is, is your filter working correctly I have done a lot of reading on nitrates because I had high nitrates in my fish only tank and they all say the same ----dont overfeed , do regular waterchanges , put plants in to absorb the nitrate ,clean any dead debris from the plants etc,but as Im sure you have already done so this im a bit puzzled ( which doesn't take a lot lol)

hope you can spot something here.
FWNitratesNitrates in Freshwater Aquarium Systems. [NO3-]? By Bob Fenner .... calcareous gravels of high solubility, other chemicals or commercial preparations, ...
www.wetwebmedia.com/fwsubwebindex/fwnitrates.htm - 30k - Cached - Similar pages

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senile old git

100ppm phosphate - are you sure

George i expect your filters are working fine as nitrate is the end product.
Unless you can grow plants successfully then leave them out of the aquarium as this will only lead to more problems when they start to wither and die and become infested with algae.

Adding plants is not the answer unless your tank is set up for plants. Wont go into it to much as its a bit off topic. Alot of people will try this route with no success.

Your only answer is regular water changes with good maintenance of substrate and filter. Adding something like Matrix into your cannistar filter will also aid in keeping nitrates low but this will take a couple of months to start seeing the benefits.

You can also use nitrate resins in your filter but if you have high nitrates to start with then i feel these can be a waste of time as they will get saturated to quickly

read it again kieth ,I had 100ppm phosphate not george ,checked by myself and double checked by my local lfs, and also your filters can be so efficient that they break down ammonia and nitrite so quick the end result is a high nitrate reading ( not as high as 250ppm though lol) I cured mine by replacing the sponges and other media with live rock . not an option for george though.but if she has sponges in there I would remove or clean very regulary.

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senile old git

1 ppm of nitrite can similarly lead to 1.35 ppm of nitrate.

1 ppm of ammonia can similary lead to 3.65 ppm of nitrate .

Dosnt matter how fast it does it mate the figures will still be the same.


100ppm of phosphates seem strange as my test kits only measure upto 5.0mgl which is roughly the same as 5.0ppm if im not mistaken. thats why i assumed it was impossible to have or get readings that high

ive had 100ppm nitrate in my marine tank when i 1st set up, but ive never seen/heard of 250ppm thats extreme to say the least, could be filter failure or needs cleaning/over feeding, von, have you been feeding a new food which may have caused this?ie meaty foods

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sory keith left the . out 1.00ppm as for the nitrate problem I am saying what cured mine , and we are still no nearer in curing her problem of 250ppm nitrate .

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senile old git

If those stats are correct, i'd give serious thought almost starting over, thorough substrate clean up, 3 or 4 50% water change's over the course of a week, filter / filters clean up.

I am not saying that you need to panic about 250ppm nitrate, especially if the fish are looking ok (although obviously you'd want to try and bring it down), just advising caution over the pH, might not be a problem now, but could be if the pH is beginning to crash.

It might not be this, but one thing to be aware of is a build up of organic waste to such a level that the water becomes more acidic and the pH crashes. It happened to someone i know, and you want to make sure the pH doesn't continue to drop resulting in such low levels of pH where the filter bacteria die off.

If you do opt for a big clean up of tank, don't be too vigourous with the biological filter media, just make sure its not clogged up with crap and gunge.

If your set-up really is not packed with organic waste (which may not be visible to your eye) then i am not sure what's going on.

The only way i'd say it's anything to do with your filter's is if the biological media is literally covered in black sludge and become a massive nitrate factory!

If quite a bit of protein is going into the tank for the FRT (dont even know what they eat!) then you may want to consider some addition filtration support, such as Seachem Purigen.

Von, info that might be helpful

1. size of tank, occupants
2. water change routine over the past 3-4 months
3. what exactly goes in to the tank food wise in the average course of a week
4. is it planted? if so, is there some dying / rotting plants?
5. filter maintenance routine

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