Nitrates/Nitrites

Question
Hi Reene,

I have now settled in Australia from India. while in India I had heaps of freshwater fish and have never know the problem of Ammonia/Nitrates/Nitirtes etc, I used to just have an aerator and alot of fish in a small tank maybe 2ft x 1ft x1.5ft high. I used to daily feed them live worms and things used to be fine.

I now live in australia and have set up a 1000 litre fresh water fish tank and have just 4 neon tetras and 2 pairs of sailfin mollies and I have such a big problem to maintain the water condition. So often my fish had died. I have the water checked in the pet shop every week. Its either the PH is too high or the Ammonia is very high now its the nitrates and nitrites that are very high I have so far lost three sailfin mollies. The pet store guy always push me to buy Ammolock/Nitro pads/carbon/bacteria and so on. I am unable to understand this water story. I do weekly water changes of 25% and immediately I have a problem with the Ammo/Nitrates/Nitrites. Is there any natural method (no chemicals)of freshwater fish keeping that you can recommend. I have just added so Java moss into the tanks for the sake of the babies.

I use tap water, I store the water in the morning and drop some decholorinater into the water and in the evening I do the water change. I feed the fish on flakes once in 3 days. I now have abt 30 baby sailfin mollies in the same tank in a breeder net. I am scared they will die. Today I bought a Nitrate pad cut a bit of it and tied it to the suction of the filter to clear up the nitrates.

Please advise??????

Answer
Hi Rodney,

First off, let's make sure the filter isn't the culprit.  Is it a canister filter?  If so, it needs changing monthly, no matter what the petstore guy says.

Second, I recommend switching the type of water you are using. Obviously, the Australian water has very high silicates, which are used to clean drinking water, but are horrible to introduce into the tank.  This is an issue a dechlorinator cannot fix.

You may live in an area, additionally, with waste in the water, and/or the gravel in the aquarium isn't clean and so everytime you add water, it stirs up nitrates/nitrites.

So, let's increase filtration.  Please make sure your filter is rated to treat double the size of your aquarium.

Use Reverse Osmosis water.  The PH is perfect for tetra (I raise mollies and tetra myself and it is what I use) and it also is mass-filtered when taken from most fill stations.

I don't know Australia very well, however I assume there are water filter stations in some grocery stores that allow you to bring in an empty gallon jug and fill it with filtered water. This is where you need to get your water from here forward.

The fish will do much better with filtered water than tap, if this is the conditions raised everytime you use tap water.

If a fill-station is not available, I recommend buying an R/O water treatment system and installing it in your home or garage water outlet.  You won't regret it.  Water will have great quality when it comes out.

You can additionally add a UV sterilizer to your system to keep germs and nitrates at a lower quantity, however it may not handle the load you are getting, unless you do both, the R/O water and the UV.

This is my recommendation.

I hope this helps, Rodney.  Please feel free to follow up with any additional questions and I hope my answer has been professional for you.  I do strive for 10s on the rating system and do my best to volunteer the best information available.

Happy fish-keeping.

Renee