Got something!!!!!!

[Monica25]

When should u worry about nitrate? I have maybe 10ppm... This coming Monday it will be one week since my water change..it was a large water change but since everything is at 0 except nitrate now I want to keep the changes smaller and on schedule.. I have a thick sand bed and some rock. Is 1 or two gallons good weekly or biweekly? What works best for little tanks or just in general?

[FireWater]

Small frequent changes are the best for a small tank in my opinion. I would try a weekly 1 gallon change and then check your levels like you are doing. Once you start adding more critters to the tank you will obviously be producing more wastes and might have to either up the frequency or size of changes.

For reference I used to do a weekly 5 gallon change in my old 30 gallon tank. I started battling water parameters changes so I upped to 3 gallon changes twice a week to try to stay ahead of it.