Nitrate Spike?

[jake1515]

On Day 12 of cycling my tank. Currently, I have two guppies in the tank that I am cycling with a few plants that have been in there for a lil over a week. I have been taking readings every day and today was a HUGE spike of Nitrate. Everything read 0, (ph 7.6+) but Nitrate came out a scary red color of 80 ppm. My layman hypothesis was the spike was due to dead plant matter since two of my small plants died, but I have no idea if that results in a Nitrate spike. Advice is obviously much appreciated.

Thank you!

[zzrguy]

Ride it out for 2 or 3 days see if the nitrates drop if not change out some water. Clean out the dead plant matter and get a stem plant. are you running filtration or a air stone?

[RainbowSocks]

I'm assuming you're using a liquid test kit...
I would personally recheck the nitrate. If you don't pretty much murder the second test bottle of nitrate before adding the 10 drops, you can get false-positive readings.

If the reading is still that high, I would do water changes to bring the nitrate back down, and see if you get another spike. Nitrate levels over 30-40 ppm can stress your fishies.

Edit: Your nitrates will only drop if your plants are using them. How big is your tank? How many/what types of plants do you have? I only have a few plants in my 10 gallon, and it takes over a week for nitrates to even register.