2nd 20 gal. water change since Sun. Amonia and Nitrates still the same

[redtang]

I have a 125 gal. FOWLR that has been running for 1 yr. the nitrates were about 40 ppm, and amonia up a little due to some turbo snails dieing (4), the problem is that I have already done a water change Sunday, and another tonight Wed. 20gal. each time. The trates, and amonia were hardly effected. There was almost no change. There was, but it has been very little. What should I do.

 

[fshhub]

any other indication of a problme, other than your test kit saying so?
whay type of tester are you using, and can you test it against another source? maybe take a sample to your lfs?
could be a problem with the kit, they do expire and some are not accurate anyhow, some are easily corrupted too. I would look at this possibility too, especially if all else seems fine.
if not, what new additions if any have you made? or any changes. anything else hapen other than a couple of snails dying? turbos die regularly, so this is not a great indication of a problem. but something worth noticing.

 

[redtang]

Everything looks fine. The fish are fine, and eating good. I recently added the snails, they only made it one day. I think it might be because I keep my salanity on the low side. 1.021, also I had a large 4'' yellow tang in there for 1 year, and recently switched it with a 4'' koran angel. He was added the same time as the snails, but he is swimming, and eating good. The only other things in there are 4 blue damsels, and 1 coral banded shrimp, and 1 cleaner shrimp, 1 dragon goby. The snails stayed in the tank for about a day before I noticed they were dead. What I don't understand is why have the water changes not done anything?

 

[ophiura]

The big question is (as fshhub asks) are you sure the test kits are accurate? Can you take the water to the LFS and get the same answer? What are your levels, exactly? Any nitrite? What are you feeding? The point is, your test kits may be inaccurate, or you may have something more going on that the snails indicated, but that means other things are dying off producing ammonia, even though you are trying to remove it. But I am suspicious of the test kits first...did you buy them about a year ago, or are they new? What brands?
The first thing I would do is take a sample to a reputable LFS and get them to check it out with (probably newer) reagents.

 

[redtang]

My test kit is about a year old, but the things say they are good until 6/04. My tests indicate that amonia is right around .05 ppm, nitrites 0, nitrates 40 ppm, salinity 1.021, temp. 81, I will take some water to my LFS to see what they say. Also, there is still one snail in the tank that I could not find. It was the smallest of the four, and this is why I could not find it. The rest were taken out as soon as I noticed they were dead, maybe a day after they died, not sure. I did the water change a day after taking the snails out.