Nitrate extremely high help

[Kiknme]

Ok so had to leave town for a few weeks and had someone feeding my African cichlids now my nitrates are off the charts 160ppm, nitrites and ammonia are both 0 and my ph is low 7.4ish. I have done one 50% water change and my nitrate are still up in the 160ppm water from my tap test out at between 10-20ppm no live plants in tank and I have 15 fish now 2 had died and rotting in the tank hidden so I don't really blame the person I had feeding for getting them out sooner it's a 60 gallon tank with a penguin 350 HOB. Looking to do another 50% water change today an see how that goes but other input or suggestions would be great

Thanks in advance kiknme

[supadave]

I would do a larger water change . If you have a gravel substrate , make sure that you clean your gravel as well. You can clean it by using aPython or one of the manual gravel vacs .

[Kiknme]

Sorry forgot to put its a sand substrate and the water change I did was on friday night. If I did like a 70 or 80% water change today am I going to send my fish in to shock with such a drastic change?

[supadave]

If you have well seasoned filters......you can do pratically a 100% water change without any problems . In your case.....just bump it up to 70% and perform a water change today and tomorrow . Also, before performing the water change today. .....clean the filter in tank water . If you are doing a water change and your filters are still filled with the waste from rotting fish.....then your wasting your time . Your Nitrates will still be high. So...make sure your biomedia and filter are clean .

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