high nitrate

Hello Aquarium Club, I am new to this hobbie! I ve a comet and 2 danios who look fine but i ve started to get high nitrate readings, have done daily changes and added salt and bacteria solution should i repeat process?

Hi and welcome,

I personnaly i would do a change 20% of the water everyday adding either prime or some prefer stress coat to the mix. That should solve the problem.

WELCOME TO OUR FORUM.

You didn't say whether the aquarium has gone through its nitrogen cycle. If it has not, it will probably have toxic ammonia and nitrite. Nitrate is much less reactive than nitrite. Goldfish tolerate those things pretty well and are actually used by some people to cycle an aquarium. Goldfish also produce lots of waste, and that turns into nitrogen compounds (ammonia, nitrite and nitrate). The beneficial bacteria, once established, will digest the nitrogen compounds. They sell live bacteria to help an aquarium cycle, and they sell things that encourage bacterial growth but do not contain the actual bacteria. Salt, at high levels, could interfere with the beneficial bacteria. It is sometimes used to treat diseases but should not be added to a freshwater aquarium on a regular basis.

If you test the water for ammonia and nitrite, you should get a zero reading. If not, you will need to do a 20 percent water change every day until those two things stay at zero. The water changes will also reduce salinity. Don't forget to use a good conditioner for the replacement water.

PS: While I was writing this, Tony had already posted a response, so the water change thing got repeated.

Thankyou i will persevere!