will fish significantly effect nitrate?

[oscar139]

Ok so, i have a two week old 20 gallon tank. i have put live rock, some water and sand from my 55 gallon into this tank. and it in the process of a nitrate spike. another problem, i am getting a pistol shrimp around wednesday and i was just wondering how a fish would help/hurt the nitrate problem? please help.

 

[Arati]

anything you add will cause the ammo/trite/trate to spike on a new tank or a small tank that can be significant. when starting a new tank its important to go slowly to allow the tank to build up the ability to handle more load. adding a fish definetly wont help. go slowly grasshopper!

 

[oscar139]

haha ok, i may just add the pistol to a 3 gallon tank under my main that will have water from the main one going through it until the 20 gallon is properly set up

 

[waynotcars]

Its not so much the fish themselves that cause the nitrate. It's how you feed them. The more fish, the more you have to feed, the more waste. So it gets confused a lot of the time. You could have very few fish but feed way too heavy and destroy your cycle.

 

[TRIGGERMAN]

You should not be adding anything living to a 2 week old tank.

 

[fishman1069]

+1 to what Triggerman said!!

 

[cdamiano]

You said you are taking the water and rock and sand from your existing 55 gallon. How long has your 55 gallon been up and running? If that tank doesn't have high nitrates then one possible explanation could be that the sand you took out stirred up your sandbed and then caused a nitrate spike.

 

[oscar139]

It has been running for 1 and a half years. And ya that sounds about right.