:( nitrates

[ollie947]

nitrates are umm off the charts. (200ish+). whats the best way too get them down without throwing off my ph and shocking the fishies. havent had much time off work too change there water. its a 55 gal tank. with just a few older fishies. i have started slowly changing out the water. 15 gal yesterday. going too do another 15 today. clown fishie isnt looking too hot.

 

[btldreef]

Welcome to the forums! If you could answer some of these questions below, we might be able to better figure out what is going on in your tank:
What are your other readings?
What are your tank inhabitants?
What do you feed? How often? How much?
How old is the tank?
What do you have for filtration? (how much rock, how much sand, do you have a sump, what kind of filter)
How long have the nitrates been this high?
What test kit are you using? How old is it?
Daily water changes is one of the best ways to knock down nitrates, but yours are reading REALLY high. There are a few methods that involve adding things to the tank such as a refugium with macro algaes, but finding the cause of the problem is a big first step.