Anonymous
I am the angel of death . . . FOR FISH!

I got a 30-ish gal freshwater aquarium. In it, live two danios and one gourami. And a few little plants.

My nitrates are OVER 9000!!!! (up around 200ppm). Everything else is copasetic. No ammo, nitrite, phos, pH is 7.

I just added a nitrate absorber to the filter and have poured enough additive shit in there over the last month to start a meth lab.

10 - 20 gal gravel vac changes PER WEEK.

What the hell?
>> Anonymous
Check your filter hoses.
Those get crammed with nasty stuff, especially if they are bent.
The sand is accumulating stuff too over time.
>> Anonymous
*laugh* man, I'm the same way. Assuming the fish don't eat each other (despite the fact they're supposed to get along), they always catch some hideous disease and die. I gave up raising them years ago and now stick to cats. no probs there...
>> Texas Raider
>>82165
I work for an aquarium service, so I might be able to help. But first I need to ask a few questions.

1. Did your aquarium ever cycle(get cloudy while the biological filter established itself)?

2. Did the abnormally high reading start in ph then go to ammo then to nitrite then to nitrate.? Or did the nitrate spike appear out of nowhere and not ever affect other readings?

3. What sort of filter set up do you have?

4. Are the plants live or plastic?

5. Have you recently changed your water supply?

6. Are you useing an older test kit or something made within the last year or so?

7. Have you checked the reading with a different test kit?

8. Did the behaviour of the fish change sharply during the spike but before your attepts to correct the problem?