redearslider.com

Ive been away for a while, got back a little over a week ago. First thing i did was cleaned the filter. After a few days I did a 90% water change. I did another 80%ish water change tonight. My Nitrates are OFF THE CHAIN! It's typically been a little high, but now it's ridiculously high. All other levels are where they need to be, it's just the nitrates.
40 Breeder with about 35gal of water, Fluval 406, 10" air stone. 5" YES, 4 Tetras, Pleco, cory cat, and a crayfish.

Is the 406 just not powerful enough?

That and maybe there's a lot of waste in the tank?

It is kinda odd as the Fluval 406 is meant for up to 100 gallons of water. I always went by the theory with turtles to double up on filtration per the gallon ratio due to the waste and with you having 35 to 40 gallons maximum, you did just that so I am leaning towards Steves thinking on the matter in regards to a lot of waste. Is your Fluval 406 working properly? It seems that you did all the right things . Kinda puzzled on this.

that makes two of us, ha.. the filter seems to be running properly, it has good suction, and the return is pretty strong. I think my next step is pulling the sand out and rinsing it. I don't think theres THAT much waste, but that seems like the only other option?? i don;t know.. i've seen that some people run a filter with a plant, I don't remember the name of the plant. do you guys think that would help at all?

Any chance there's food or a dead critter buried under something?

NYstyle wrote:that makes two of us, ha.. the filter seems to be running properly, it has good suction, and the return is pretty strong. I think my next step is pulling the sand out and rinsing it. I don't think theres THAT much waste, but that seems like the only other option?? i don;t know.. i've seen that some people run a filter with a plant, I don't remember the name of the plant. do you guys think that would help at all?

I agree with you. Clean everything thoroughly and start like it is a brand new set up...The filtration seems perfect and in doing so, it should be good. I I have one single live non toxic plant in mine attached to driftwood. I have not seen my nitrates go up.

ljapa wrote:Any chance there's food or a dead critter buried under something?

Great possibilities recommended here, dead fish , crayfish or anything, this could very well do it as well. Complete system clean out recommended. , thank you ljpa

A full cleaning is on the agenda for this weekend. I've already stirred up all of the sand twice and theres nothing in there. I thought plants would help reduce nitrates in water, something about about plants "feeding" off of Nitrates? It is a bit of a challenge to keep the turtle and crayfish from uprooting and/or eating them.

Keep doing water changes, nitrates should start to drop. You might consider testing your water right out of the tap too.
Plants do help with nitrates but with your stocking is too heavy for plants to make much of a dent. Consider cutting back on feedings until the nitrates are back in control.

I drained all the water yesterday, and did a through cleaning of the sand. There seemed to be a lot of "stuff" buried in there. After letting the tank settle for a couple of hours nitrate levers were perfect. I'll take another test later today to see how things are holding up. Thanks again for all the advice.

You are welcome and congratulations for getting it under control !