Nitrate Shock

[cheseboy]

I am lowering a friend's tank's nitrates because they are extremely high. About 160+, the fish are dieing though I am concerned about if lowering the nitrates will shock the fish the same as putting a new fish in an aquarium with high nitrates. Should I attrempt to do a "Slow large water change" over the corse of a few days to attempt to lower it slowly or should I go for it all. Will it hurt the fish?

[harif87]

Although nitrate isnt poisonous hig levels are toxic. So it must be treated like a toxin. The less poison a person has in their system the better......if they had 98% of their blood content to be poison it wouldnt harm them to take out all the poison in one shot...it would only benefit.

[girth vader]

Originally Posted by cheseboy

I am lowering a friend's tank's nitrates because they are extremely high. About 160+, the fish are dieing though I am concerned about if lowering the nitrates will shock the fish the same as putting a new fish in an aquarium with high nitrates. Should I attrempt to do a "Slow large water change" over the corse of a few days to attempt to lower it slowly or should I go for it all. Will it hurt the fish?

with the nitrates screaming like that, I'm not surprised he is losing fish. However do 30% H2O changes over the course of a week. every second day. that should get them down to a safer level. dont go for the gusto all in one shot. fish seldom react well to sudden changes in anything, temp, PH, NO3 ect. Always better to do it gradual to keep stress levels and fatalities to a minimum. Just out of curiousity, what test kit did you use? I have great results with Tetra. Keep in mind that the test kits have shelf lives. So I would also take it to the LFS and have them test your NO3 to see that you are getting an accurate reading.

[violet]

There is a lot more in water than we have test kits for. Despite the dreadful nitrate readings, the fish have become used to ALL the things in the water, even though some are toxins. I'm with girth vader on this, small frequent changes. I would do 15-20% maximum each day but the idea is the same.

This is probably how the old belief that waterchanges were a bad thing occurred. Don't change any water for 6 months, just top it off. One day you decided to do a 75% waterchange (insert reason here). Fish die. Conclusion: water changes are bad.

The *old* way fish died very slowly, probably never living more than a fraction of their possible life.

A huge sudden water change puts them in such a drastically different environment that fish die.

[Durbkat]

What size tank is it and what and how many fish do they have in this tank?

[book_em_danio]

Before jumping to any conclusions, test the tap water. Also Nitrate kits are notorious for having way off readings, a second or third test of the tank water would not be out of the question.
Is it municipal water or well water? All sorts of things end up in water. Nitrates are good, when you call them fertilizer... Fertilizer runs off and ends up in the water supply... ooops.
Before I bought my house, I owned a condo. It was well water. About 1/4 mile from the property line, was the highway department's salt pile. Tons and tons, leaching into the aquafire. The water tested with a rather high sodium content, a nearby municipality had city water with 110mg per liter. The average sodium in the area was 278mg per liter from softened well water. Ours was over 1,200 mg per liter! You could taste this. The highway department said it was the softener of our development. We had it examinted and repaired repeatedly. Eventually, it was replaced. We never saw sodium drop below 1,000 mg per liter. The Highway Department never fessed up. I sold my condo. I recall there were lawyers involved.
Never assume the water from your tap is all that good. Next time you pollute something, remember it will eventually come back to haunt you.

[Vermifugert]

Originally Posted by book_em_danio

Before jumping to any conclusions, test the tap water. Also Nitrate kits are notorious for having way off readings, a second or third test of the tank water would not be out of the question.
Is it municipal water or well water? All sorts of things end up in water. Nitrates are good, when you call them fertilizer... Fertilizer runs off and ends up in the water supply... ooops.

Good advice but a better option would be to take a sample of the water to a local fish store and have them test it. If they have that option available to them that is.

On a side note the county should have records of ground water contamination. A gas station two cities away had a leaky tank. But it was persistent for many many years. It contaminated the ground water for a good 5 miles. Not to mention contaminating the creek that connects all the major cities in my area.

My county had records of everything including the water table and effected areas.