Nitrates shot up

[Chris_150G]

I had my nitrates at a steady 5-10 ppm. Yesterday I tested and it was 20+. I looked in my tank and found a big dead rotting turbo snail. When I pulled it out it smelled up my kitchen in 5 seconds. After two 10% water changes I'm still at 20ppm. So that is probably the cause of the escalated nitrates? A fat dead snail? Maybe cause nobody could eat it since it was locked up in its shell?

 

[Rcpilot]

Yeah. That was it. I find dead snails in my tanks all the time. Sometimes I can't get them out, so they have to sit there and rot. Just do some extra water changes.

Hopefully you are using a good RO/DI water filter.

 

[Chris_150G]

Yeah I have a new RO filter but I only store about 15 gallons under my tank so Im limited to a couple of 10% changes per day. Hopefully I can get it back down with a few more 10% water changes. From now on I'm going to do a daily inspection and those snails are all on probation.

 

[Rcpilot]

If you can get the dead ones out then go ahead and remove them. If one of them dies under the rocks or someplace you can't get at it - don't worry about it. If you got any crabs they'll find a way in eventually. It takes about 6-8 weeks for a dead snail to rot completely. Just double up on the water changes if there's one stuck in there.