how often do u clean ur african tank? help?

So for some reason my nitrites and nitrates are always super high! My tank always looks cloudy and I can't figure out why it seems like I can't go a week with out changing my tank at least one what's going on?? I seriously can't figure it out!!!! I have two back pack style filters going. But no underground filter is that my problem? Idk any ideas?? Please help
Fishyladdy

What size tank are we talking about and how much stock do you have and their size. My 75 gal is way overcrowded and seems to be that way sometimes too but when i'm not lazy and change 30% of the water twice a week its all good.

The one I'm talking about is a 55 gallon its pretty over crowded but not super bad. I have maybe 30 fish ranging in size from 2inches to 6 inches. They seem to do ok together and if Ihave to many fish in it I can always put a few in my 120 gallon. I just don't understand why it gets sooo bad with in 2 days grr

Personally I think that 30 fish that size in a 55gal is too much unless your changing the water more than twice a week. Try and take some of the bigger fish or a group of fish out and see how it goes for a few weeks. I love crowded busy tanks and that's how my tanks are but its a lot more work to keep the fish happy and water clean. Use the rule one inch of fish per gallon and for bigger fish 1-2 gallons per inch of fish and you should have good water if you only change it once a week. If not just change your water lots!

I have 28 fishes in mine. 26 are africans and 2 are pleos. Are in a 105gal with 2 canister filters and 1 HOB canister. But I still do water changes every week or every other week depends on life schedule. But other tanks every week.

Hmm.. ok well maybe ill move my larger fish into my 120 then. Thanks for the advice

Most of my tanks are overcrowded as well and I do weekly 50% or larger water changes on those.

You said your nitrites are super high and that sounds like a problem that needs more than water changes to fix. It's dangerous for the fish too.  Are these new filters on the tank? What's your filter maintenance like? Did you recently add a lot of fish? (Just wondering if anything might have happened to your beneficial bacteria.)

I would add some media from another tank or go get yourself some Fritz bacteria, and add it immediately. Nitrates on the high side, not a big deal, Nitrites on the high side, BAD. You need to get bacteria in there. If you were closer I would give you several already established scrubbies that I have in every filter, to help get things back to normal. You need some BB in there fast.

Both my filters are about 5 months old. I just testing my water and my nitrites are at least 2.0ppm. I have no new fish and I'm doing a water change as I type this I have no clue what to do to keep the nitrites down I don't want my fish to die or be unhappy

Look around and under decor. Might be a dead fish causing nitrites to go high.

i take everything out like decor when i clean the tank and i still see nothing that would make them crazy high like that :/

Are you overfeeding. Alot of food= alot of poop (bio matter)= increase of ammonia, nitrates, nitrites, and high ph (well they need that high)

First of all. This is a very LONG topic that will take many posts to go through it all. But I'll start it.

The amount of fish in a tank doesn't matter. Having 1000 neon tetras in a 55 gallon tank and having 100 neons in a 55 gallon tank is the same bio load. Which is ZERO.

I know you think I'm crazy, but fish only produce a bio load when we feed them.  The first thing to understand is that the amount of fish doesn't matter. What matters is how much food we as humans put in.

If I put a teaspoon of food in for 100 neon tetras and they eat it all. It will create the same amount of waste that 1 teaspoon of food for 1000 neon tetras produce. The net end is the same.

So lets say we agree that 1 teaspoon of food is equal to 1 teaspoon of food. Then we get into the problem of well, 1000 neon tetras should eat more than a teaspoon of food. This may or may not be true. To see the effects of feeding it generally takes at least a month to notice changes. If you're not feeding enough they'll start losing weight slowly. If we're feeding too much for what the tank can handle we see that immediately with Nitrites, ammonia etc.

For the next part, lets assume we know how much to feed the tank. Lets say it's 1 tablespoon of food. The next thing to look at is how clean the food is. And by clean I mean how pure, how much of it can be used by the fish. What isn't used by a fish it turned into waste.

Without bringing food brand names into a debate here. Just know that the closer to live food you get the cleaner it is. So a food with say the first ingredient as soybean meal will have more fillers/waste than say frozen bloodworms. By putting 1 tablespoon of bad quality flake food into a tank you'll have a lot more waste in the water than by using 1 tablespoon of bloodworms or any other higher quality food.

You basically get back what you put in with food quality.

To answer the first question of how often do you clean an african tank. All my breeding tanks I've had setup in the past was 50% water change once a month. All my African tanks also had live plants.

Other areas of discussion when time permits. Bacteria preservation(taking out decorations while cleaning, kills bacteria)

Amount of water changes/doing maintenance optimally. Don't change water, service your filters, remove decor etc all on the same day. A "Big cleaning job" is much worse than tackling one of those steps every 3 days for instance.

Sounds like you don't have enough bio load or it's crashing for some reason? Do a good water change then stop feeding them for a couple of days, they won't die!   See if anything changes with the nitrites/nitrates raising.   Either way 30 fish from 2 ta 6"  seems like a lot of fish for a 55

What's your ammonia read?

You took the words right out of my mouth Cory, with your comments on food and cleaning.

well i feed my fish once a day high quality food pellets and blood worms at night. as for my ammonia it is always at 0 it never spikes once in a while it does i guess but not often. at the moment i am cleaning my tank at least once a week its getting to be a pain because im doing it old school with 5 gallon buckets. should i just stop feeding them everyday?

You should just feed them less than you currently are each day. Right now your tank is telling you, you produce more waste than it currently handles. Which means you need to balance it.

A fish tank is a balance of Food going in, filters converting it and plants or water changes taking it out.

If changing water is becoming too much of a pain you need to balance it on the other ends.

Fishladdy, are you preserving the bio-media when you clean your filters?  You aren't throwing out cartridges or thoroughly rinsing and wringing out sponges and giving the filters a thorough cleaning each week are you? If you do too good of a job cleaning them, you are destroying that beneficial bacteria that the tank needs to keep the ammonia and nitrites in check.

i only rinse the filters and i dont do it every time i clean the tank

Are you rinsing with tap water? That will kill all the good bacteria.

Aquarium Co-Op wrote:You should just feed them less than you currently are each day.  Right now your tank is telling you, you produce more waste than it currently handles. Which means you need to balance it.

A fish tank is a balance of Food going in, filters converting it and plants or water changes taking it out.

If changing water is becoming too much of a pain you need to balance it on the other ends.

+1 Cory I agree with you on this

I didn't notice in this thread what type of filtration is being used. Only read " two back pack type filters".

Could you please elaborate on your filter system? What are your filters rated for? What type of media are inside the filters?

What I found that keeps nitrates low to 0 is over filtration, plants, & water changes.

If there is a Nitrite spike then there is an issue with bio load. Excessive foods/fish waste is contributing to his but you should be able to elevate this trouble shooting filtration.