nitrates high

My ammonia and nitrite are consistently 0, so why do my nitrates always seem to be 40pmm, even with twice weekly water changes?

waters changes are done to get rid of more than just nitrates.

As was already said, that is a good thing sort of. That means your tank is running well.

How big of a water change do you do each time? What size tank and how many fish. It sounds like it may just be a moderately loaded tank that is fed

75 gal planted tank.: http://www.djh.ukjournalists.co.uk/trops.htm 3 clown loach, 5 hatchet fish, 3 platies, 2 dwarf gouramis, 1 golden gouramis, 2 honey gouramis, 1 paradise fish, 5 neons, 4 rummy nose tetras, 5 glass catfish, 1 angel fish 3 balloon mollies. Water change about 30% . Never heard of a De-Nitrator (I'm in the UK - we're a bit provincial here Any sites with info on them? (I'd still do the water changes - I actually quite enjoy doing them)

this changes things. With the plants the nitrates should be lower. What kind of lighting? What type of filtration? Using carbon? What about co2 and ferts? Get everything balanced and the plants should consume the amount of nitrogen that your fish load produces with no problems and keep your nitrates below 5 all the time. All of this swings on assuming you have it moderately to heavily planted. 3 or 4 plants don't count.

Hello Margolis.....

I know this is off original topic....but I am new to this also.

I have a 40 gal salt water up and rolling with corals and fishies...all well.

I am using a de-nitrator for nitrates and have phosphate under control also with steel wool treatment. What are the other advantages of doing water changes. I can't think of anything else. All help apreciated....

thanks

A good reef setup is completely different than a freshwater tank with a heavy bio-load and no live rock or protein skimmer to filter it.

What is your nitrAte test at right out of the tap? Mine (out of the tap) is always around 20ppm......... Frank

Oh dear, didn't know about that. Im in Qld and yesterday 2 of my tanks went right off the thermometer which goes up to 31° (it was still 30° at 8pm last night). Apart from lights out, fan on, lids off, I put ice bricks in (home made with rain water) and did a water change but still lost 2 guppies and only got the temp down to 30.

I suppose prolonged periods at that temperature is sort of like sterilizing?

Man, this keeping tropical fish in the tropics is not easy

I'd send you some of our rain if I could but I just found out yesterday that our dam is still low too despite more rain in the last month than we've had in years.

> do water changes anymore. Nitrates at 5ppm all the time.....good stuff > lg

Do you have some info on De-Nitrators? Web site? Also, are there other reasons to change the water besides nitrate?

Prefilter your filter - easyer to clean them every day or two than the