HIGH NITRATES!! over 130ppm

OlPainless · Mar 7, 2022

I had a lawnmower blenny die yesterday, he didn't look great in the morning and by mid day he was dead. I have had him for over a month but never really saw him eat much. Did a Nitrate test and it came out over 130ppm according to the scale. Did about a 30% water change and after a few hours checked the nitrate again, still looked to be over 130ppm. All my other fish still seemed happy and they were fine this morning. Will do another test when I get home, just wondering what is up with the super high tests. Test kit is a year old, shows to expire in 2026.

blaxsun · Mar 7, 2022

How often do you test for nitrates and what kind of test kit are you using? You could always take a water sample to your LFS and have them perform a test to rule out an issue with your kit.

Billldg · Mar 7, 2022

What name brand test kit are you using?

OlPainless · Mar 7, 2022

blaxsun said:
How often do you test for nitrates and what kind of test kit are you using? You could always take a water sample to your LFS and have them perform a test to rule out an issue with your kit.

Its an API test kit. To be honest, I haven't checked the nitrates in a few months, last test I did the nitrates were around 20-30ppm.

blaxsun · Mar 7, 2022

OlPainless said:
Its an API test kit. To be honest, I haven't checked the nitrates in a few months, last test I did the nitrates were around 20-30ppm.

I'd invest in a better nitrate test kit, like Salifert, Nyos or Red Sea. Everyone continually reports errors with the API kits. Barring that, see if your LFS can test a water sample.

MaxTremors · Mar 7, 2022

As others mentioned, I would test with a better quality test kit. If they are that high, it’s unlikely that’s what killed your fish. Lawnmower blennies can sometimes be difficult if you don’t have the right kind of algae in your tank (or enough of it). I’ve read of people feeding them algae wafers, but I’ve never had success with them. The only times I’ve been able to keep a lawnmower long term was in large (100+ gallon) mature tanks with lots of rockwork and lots of film algae and diatoms (they don’t eat GHA if it’s long, they like the fresh new growth). I would suggest doing some water changes (use RODI), and verifying your test results.

rmorris_14 · Mar 7, 2022

If your questions is did the high nitrate kill the blenny? I wouldnt think so. From my limited understanding, high nitrates can effect fish long term but I could be wrong there.
If you did a 30 percent water change and your nitrates didnt move, then that probably means they they were that much higher than the highest reading, and you should do another water change until you see them start to drop. I would also consider trying another test. If you don't want to invest in a high priced test, I do like the salifert Nitrate test. My lawnmower blenny eats more meat than he does Algae. I think they need both in order to thrive. Of course, yours could have had issues at the time you got it, just took awhile to succumb to them.

Also, were you doing regular water leading up to this issue?

OlPainless · Mar 7, 2022

rmorris_14 said:
If your questions is did the high nitrate kill the blenny? I wouldnt think so. From my limited understanding, high nitrates can effect fish long term but I could be wrong there.
If you did a 30 percent water change and your nitrates didnt move, then that probably means they they were that much higher than the highest reading, and you should do another water change until you see them start to drop. I would also consider trying another test. If you don't want to invest in a high priced test, I do like the salifert Nitrate test. My lawnmower blenny eats more meat than he does Algae. I think they need both in order to thrive. Of course, yours could have had issues at the time you got it, just took awhile to succumb to them.

Also, were you doing regular water leading up to this issue?

I'll take a sample to my LFS and see what they get out of it, also sounds like a good time to invest in some better kits. I do water changes about every 3 weeks.

DE FISH · Mar 7, 2022

That’s high nitrate!!!! I struggle to keep mine above 1 What’s your stocking, tank size and wc schedule ?

OlPainless · Mar 7, 2022

DE FISH said:
That’s high nitrate!!!! I struggle to keep mine above 1 What’s your stocking, tank size and wc schedule ?

36 gal and change 5-8 gallons every 3 weeks along with filter change. Have a clown, royal gramma, purple firefish, damsel, coral beauty and a fire goby.

DE FISH · Mar 7, 2022

OlPainless said:
36 gal and change 5-8 gallons every 3 weeks along with filter change. Have a clown, royal gramma, purple firefish, damsel, coral beauty and a fire goby.

wow in my opinion your overstocked :/

BanjoBandito · Mar 7, 2022

OlPainless said:
36 gal and change 5-8 gallons every 3 weeks along with filter change. Have a clown, royal gramma, purple firefish, damsel, coral beauty and a fire goby.

That tanks a time bomb. Waaaaay too many fish, not to mention compatibility.

Dburr1014 · Mar 7, 2022

OlPainless said:
I had a lawnmower blenny die yesterday, he didn't look great in the morning and by mid day he was dead. I have had him for over a month but never really saw him eat much. Did a Nitrate test and it came out over 130ppm according to the scale. Did about a 30% water change and after a few hours checked the nitrate again, still looked to be over 130ppm. All my other fish still seemed happy and they were fine this morning. Will do another test when I get home, just wondering what is up with the super high tests. Test kit is a year old, shows to expire in 2026.

Any chance you have tested nitrites? Just curious

Borat · Mar 7, 2022

OlPainless said:
36 gal and change 5-8 gallons every 3 weeks along with filter change. Have a clown, royal gramma, purple firefish, damsel, coral beauty and a fire goby.

Where is Regal Tang [aka Nemo]????

OlPainless · Mar 7, 2022

DE FISH said:
wow in my opinion your overstocked :/

I guess I am at my limit, I have had that core of fish in the tank since June '21 and they have been fine, the damsel can be a d with the royal gramma but they have been healthy so I figured everything was going fine.

OlPainless · Mar 7, 2022

Dburr1014 said:
Any chance you have tested nitrites? Just curious

Have not

OlPainless · Mar 7, 2022

Borat said:
Where is Regal Tang [aka Nemo]????

That bad boy is to big for my tank! I wanted to get colorful fish to look at, little did I know the gramma, purple firefish and fire goby would hide the whole time

DE FISH · Mar 7, 2022

OlPainless said:
I guess I am at my limit, I have had that core of fish in the tank since June '21 and they have been fine, the damsel can be a d with the royal gramma but they have been healthy so I figured everything was going fine.

Highly overstocked and low water change percentage to

rmorris_14 · Mar 7, 2022

OlPainless said:
I guess I am at my limit, I have had that core of fish in the tank since June '21 and they have been fine, the damsel can be a d with the royal gramma but they have been healthy so I figured everything was going fine.

Nitrates can definitely go up that way. And since they don't have an immediate effect on the fish its hard to have an alert if you aren't checking them regularly. I struggle to keep mine around 30 in my 32 gallon and I do 10 gallon water changes religiously every Friday. I would think if you dont want to constantly be battling with high nutrients, you either need to step up your maintenance schedule or rehome some fish.

OlPainless · Mar 8, 2022

Took a water sample to the LFS, everything looked good. Salinity at 1.025, ammonia near 0, nitrite near 0, nitrate 20-30ppm. Bought a Salifert Nitrate test feeling my API test went bad, color looked to be between the 25-50ppm. Will also look at getting rid of the damsel to reduce the fish load and cause he is an butt to my royal gramma. Thanks for the help R2R community. Tank is about to hit 1 year old in April so I will probably do a post on that progress since it is my first SW tank.