Nitrate

[Nigertriger]

I had a 4 ft Marine set up for about 8 months, I decided to get rid of it and put some of the water i had in there into my gf's tank. Hers is a 15g.
It been in there for about 2 - 3 weeks now.
Ammonia reads Nill So does Nitrite.
But Nitrate is around 80ppm!!
We had shrimp and hermits in there and they r all doing fine, so are the fish.
I dont understand why the fish arnt dead... they seem perfectly normal.
can someone tell me what is goin on.
Also the specific gravity goes up by like 0.001 each night... it never stops. even when it was set up in mine it just kept going up and up!!
I am confused.
Sam

 

[SkiFletch]

If everything seems healthy I'd question the accuracy of your test kit... It might be old and have "turned" bad on you. Ask your LFS to check it out for you and verify your own readings.

As for the SG, is your temperature changing, or is water evaporating from your tank and you're not replacing it with fresh? If neither of those are happening, then again, check your meter against someone else's to see if you're getting erroneous readings.

 

[Jeff20147]

As for the SG, is your temperature changing, or is water evaporating from your tank and you're not replacing it with fresh?

Agreed...

Also the nitrates if your doing your 20% water changes every two weeks could be coming from you tap water if that is what you are using. Switch to RO water if this is causing it.

 

[dawhits]

This same thing happens with my tank. exact same senario, I use real ocean water and yet my nitrates are always around 40 and yet the fish, snails and hermits are all fine. I tried another kit which confirmed this. its crazy
-Erik

 

[pleder]

IME nitrates that high will not have short term detrimental effects on fish. You should look for the source or build yourself a little nitrate filter.

You can take the nitrate media from seachem, put it in a 1 liter water bottle with a couple of holes, the attach a powerhead to a piece of rigid airline tubing and push a very small amount of water (under 50gph) through the media. Nitrates will be at 0 shortly.

Many tanks have nitrate isues because of the lack of anerobic bacteria colonies. If you know you have this problem then there are cheap and easy ways to fix it IME.

Good Luck.

 

[crazyelece]

I agree, short term effects of nitrate are really nil to fish. You usually find high nitrates with algea blooms. Find the source of the nitrates and you will be fine.