Nitrates high

[mrgreen]

My 30 lomg with 2 F8s that's been up 9 months has been growing brown hair algea. I tested the nitrates and they were 20! I changed over 50% of the water and retested and its 10. I found a bit of old food and some snails and removef them. A week ago I even bleached the platic plants! I've removed the light. This is really annoying me! My F8s are acting ok.

[Pufferpunk]

I had that problem. Added a couple of mollies & they ate all the algae. Puffers eventually ate all the mollies but still no algae.

[By_a_coo]

Well, if you have only plastic plants there's no reason to have strong light. Just install a bulb strong enough to see the puffers.

I have a GSP in mid BW and too much plastic plants, it's a 22 gallons with a 15W power compact bulb, and the tank is algae free (I don't know why, but my little puffer only generates 2,5ppm/week - my tank is cycled for one year now).

[mrgreen]

I got 3 mollies and 3 platties earlier and now i have 2 mollies and 1 platty! And just as much algea. I hope my puffs dont get worms!

[mrgreen]

I took back 3 and then later found one more dead one. My puffs must think I ordered them up a feast.

[mrgreen]

I also got a new bulb- 50% blue and 50% white.

[By_a_coo]

Why did your nitrates reach 20ppm? How's your water change schedule?

If your nitrate was that high, I wondered why did you add more fish to that tank? More fish = increased bioload.

[mrgreen]

I do w/c of 50-70% a week. When I last did a w/c I found old cube food in the gravel plus several dead cone snails. Nitrates went dow after removing these and a big w/c. I addwd the fish after that in hopes thwy'd eat the brown hair algea. Obviously, the puffers were faster and had other ideas.

[By_a_coo]

Ok, keep up 50% water change/weekly and measure nitrates again before the water changes, then you'll know how much waste (nitrates) your F8s produces in one week.

Obviously, the puffers were faster and had other ideas.

Poor mollies and platies... They will never stand a chance.