High nitrates or faulty test drops?

[Cermet]

You are in a bad situation; those fish will push the nitrites through the roof and water changes will take a while since the substrate is packed with waste, as well. As for the nitrate readings, from the algae cover, your nitrates (and phosphates) are high. If you are getting any ammonia reading and since you have well water (hence your filter was not harmed), the only conclusion is that you are under filtering!

Two choices: continue the very large (50% at least bi-weekly) water changes and get another filter on the tank.

Or, add a algae scrubber system - it will eat the nitrates (and phosphates) and remove any extra ammonia that the filter does not handle. Your water changes can be reduced a great deal (to just a 50% weekly would most likely work well.)

This will solve the waste build up (nitrates are a toxic waste at those levels) but the fish in that small tank is an issue. A 75 gal has a identical length and height but a greater deapth, so that might work. A 90 can be identical to a 75 gal except much higher. These might work for your situation.

[NIN8185]

My substrate are medium to large rocks and are now vacuumed up pretty well every week not leaving much solid waste behind. My filtration is for a 150 gallon tank and my water isn't well water (its town tap water that is conditioned at home to remove hardness and any chlorine and some added salt) so my water changes were under before hence the build up along with the large fish. But a 2nd filter or algae scrubber would be a good idea once i see at how my new larger water change maintenance helps out.

[Goes to 11!]

Make sure you shake the 2nd bottle of nitrate reagent really well. There are crystals in it that will settle down in the bottom and if they aren't in proper suspension you will get a bad reading. With that being said, you have a couple large bio-load fish in your tank and should probably be doing more than 2-3 10-30% changes each week. If shaking the reagents better doesn't fix the problem, try 2-3 50% changes each week and see if that helps.

+1
Yes. SHAKE it like it owes you money! And then shake some more. If that doesn't work then your Trates are actually high and the WC route is your solution.

[NIN8185]

yeah lol i've smacked it around on desks and everything to shake it up real good and will continue to do so. I will keep you guys posted on how well the large biweekly water changes goes over the coming weeks as i am hoping this will help eliminate the build up from not enough WC in the past. Thanks!

[Rocksor]

Get a water changer for these water changes. It will make your life a whole lot easier.

In order to reduce the nitrates to a readable level, your going to have to do 50% water changes everyday until you see the test actually dip below 80ppm.

[dmagerl]

+1
If that doesn't work then your Trates are actually high and the WC route is your solution.

In general this is true. But I've found that if you've done several tests with a test kit and not shaken enough for those tests, the amount of zinc particles tends to build up in the remaining testing solution giving erroneously high readings.

So to the OP, if its a test kit thats been almost used up, you could be seeing high test results simply because you didnt shake it enough in previous tests.

I always compare readings of my old test kit with my newly purchased test kit and the old one always reads high by a significant amount. Enough so that I routinely throw out a kit and buy a new one when it gets about half used.

[Honey Badger 1]

Or, add a algae scrubber system

broken-record1.jpg............

[NIN8185]

Update: As of right now.. 24h after 60% WC the Nitrates have drop down to 30>40ppm. I have a Aqueon Water Changer coming in on Friday which will make the rest of my changes fairly simple. As far as space for the koi goes I am looking into finding a reliable person locally to adopt him in to their Koi pond this summer!

[NIN8185]

Update: ~4 days after 50% WC and Nitrates are at 20>40ppm Nitrites 0ppm and Ammonia is still at .25ppm though. (next 50% WC tomorrow as well as cleaning the filter) hopefully this will drop down the ammonia.

[Cermet]

Update: ~4 days after 50% WC and Nitrates are at 20>40ppm Nitrites 0ppm and Ammonia is still at .25ppm though. (next 50% WC tomorrow as well as cleaning the filter) hopefully this will drop down the ammonia.

No!!!! Cleaning the filter is not something to do if you have non-zero ammonia; that could make it worse! Clean filters when nitrates are high (and becareful not to hurt the bacteria by using chlorinated water. Also, don't ever replace the bio-media in the filter!