Work Through a Nitrate Spike
Use 5 Whys to distinguish a symptom fix from a root-cause corrective action.
Amazon tank nitrate reached 80 ppm after a week of normal readings. A water change is needed, but the recurrence risk is unknown. Ask why until the answer points to a controllable system change, not just a visible symptom. Stopping at "too much waste" creates a corrective action that treats the water but not the feeding process that produced the waste. Why 1 Why is nitrate high? Waste load exceeded export capacity. This identifies the condition, not yet the cause. Why 2 Why did waste load increase? Uneaten feed was found in the back siphon zone. Now the chain is…
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