Nitrates

[Amiracle]

This is a problem that I have been trying to solve for 3 years. For some reason, no matter how little or how often I do partial water changes, the nitrates in my tank stay up around the 50-60ppm mark. Does anyone know why? and how to lower this?

 

[kapo]

Nitrates might be in your tapwater - have you tested it. That amount really isn't too much of a problem - ours never go over 40ppm but we don't have it in the tapwater. When Nitrates get to 80ppm+ then you do have a problem which I think is usually in long standing tanks.

Do you keep live plants as I've heard this may help reduce the nitrates in a tank.