Nitrates too high what to do!

[EbiBunBun]

I did tests on my 3.5 gal and the Nitrates were at 40! This is the last of the bottles of testing solutions from a Freshwater testing kit. I have a new bottle of testing fluid so I am going to double check it. So what to do now? I had added a nerite and some more shrimp about week ago and didn't realize that the tiny water changes (1\2 gallon at a time) were not enough anymore. All of the inhabitants seem fine, I even got my first berried pumpkin this last week.

So I did the usual water change. I was afraid to do more since I have heard that the female could drop her eggs if there was a sudden change. I'm going to add a bag of purigen. Can I do water changes everyday? Or every other day? Should I try to add more plants?

[TheGardenofEder]

I've done 90 percent water changes with no death but water change is your best way how many fish/shrimp do you have it is a small tank and wash your filter

[OMG Aquatics]

You have to find what's causing the high nitrates. I had my shrimp at 160+ ppm nitrate before and no death. I started using RO water and floater plants and now my nitrates are very low, around 0-10ppm

 

If your going to add floaters, don't expect it to magically bring your nitrates down. The plants have to first adjust to the change and may take 2-4 weeks before it effectively absorbs nitrates.

[RyeGuy411]

Purigen has worked very well for me to reduce Nitrates.  I had a tank that was at 120ppm small water changes combined with adding Purigen and after a couple weeks the tank stayed at 0.

[EbiBunBun]

I am continuing with the water changes and added purigen. So far no bad reactions from my berried female. Also removed the snail. This tank has always been stable and easy to keep below 10ppm until I added the snail and heater. So she will go live alone until I can figure what to do with her. There are only 13 shrimp in there so things should get under control easily enough. I just kinda freaked out because I thought all the shrimp would die if the nitrates were over 20ppm. I'm very happy they aren't dead, just a bit confused. Is this more a thing for the Caridina shrimp, or are Pumpkin Neos just very hardy?

[RyeGuy411]

I know personally my tank with nitrates at 120ppm had cherries and they seemed ok.  I know Caridina are very sensitive so I always keep my bee tanks at 0ppm.

[High5's]

I have Caridina breeding just fine @ 40ppm nitrate and I know a very experienced keeper that has them breeding in 60-80ppm nitrate. He says most breeders don't check nitrates unless something is wrong with the tank, like shrimp dyeing or slowed breeding. If you want to lower your nitrates just keep up with small weekly biweekly wc until you get it where you want it.

[Roborep1]

Purigen and dwarf water lettuce worked for me

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[TheGardenofEder]

Duck weed

[zodiac]

I did tests on my 3.5 gal and the Nitrates were at 40! This is the last of the bottles of testing solutions from a Freshwater testing kit. I have a new bottle of testing fluid so I am going to double check it. So what to do now? I had added a nerite and some more shrimp about week ago and didn't realize that the tiny water changes (1\2 gallon at a time) were not enough anymore. All of the inhabitants seem fine, I even got my first berried pumpkin this last week.

So I did the usual water change. I was afraid to do more since I have heard that the female could drop her eggs if there was a sudden change. I'm going to add a bag of purigen. Can I do water changes everyday? Or every other day? Should I try to add more plants?

i don't know what shrimp can tolerate,but like other things if you want to lower them,do it slowly.

 

with nitrates you can do the math to see what you need to do to lower them.

with 40 ppm,doing a 50% water change will drop it to 20 ppm.

though i would not do that big of a water change.

if you do a 3/4 gallon wc (21%) a day for 3 days,40 ppm would drop to under 20 ppm (not counting what your tank produces in that 3 days).

 

with 40 ppm,doing a 1/2 gallon wc removes 5.7 ppm.

if your tank produces more then 5.7 ppm between wc's,nitrates will just increase over time.

so,you have to do more of a wc or more often to lower them.

 

plants take some nitrates out.

[Subtletanks91]

I know personally my tank with nitrates at 120ppm had cherries and they seemed ok.  I know Caridina are very sensitive so I always keep my bee tanks at 0ppm.

Common misconception in card tanks and nitrates. There not as sensitive as people think. I've had shrimp breeding in a nitrate level of 80+ and a 75% survival rate of shrimplets. Cards in many ways are way more resilient than anyone gives them credit for. Over the summer I diamond water change and only top offs with a tds over 150 and nitrate levels I would have never considered possible for breeding or survival parameters before. Play with your tank and see what works for you. But country will attest to my success with the cards in those parameters. Heat in my experienxe plays more of a role with them than anything else. Aside from ammonia

[Grammaknits02]

Also, when doing these water changes, if you drip the new water in slowly, the shrimp can acclimate slowly.  That way, the water change wont affect your berried girl...she probably won't notice.  Some peole tie a knot in airline tubing to allow the new water to drip in slowly.  Others have used a gang valve with airline tubing.  If you are going to change water everyday until your nitrates come down, I would drip the new water in slowly.  I always drip mine in over a couple of hours.