how do I get nitrates down?? theyre between 80 and 160.

the only way is by doing lots of water changes. how often do you change the water and how much each time. this is the last stage of waste by your fish and unless you have live plants to take in some of the nitrate then the only way to remove it is by lots of water changes until its well below 40, ideally about 20. can you take some tap water in to a glass and test that too then you can see what it is naturally. post back soon.

The quickest and easiest way is.... Water changes, 15-25% every day or every other day until the nitrate level checks below 20.

I easily do a 30% change every three days on some tanks that have very large fish in them. Do not be afraid to change the water as needed with the volume that is needed. The majority of your beneficial bacteria is not contained in the water anyway...

Like everyone said, water changes are the best way.
Also cut down on how much you are feeding. In reality the more you feed the fish, the more you are feeding the tank and nitrates are your end result.

Water changes, I agree totally with all of the above.
I have very high Nitrates in my tank, I do a 50% water change once a week to keep mine under control.

good luck

Well, I will definately cut down on feeding, something I have been trying, but everyone else in the house thinks theyre cute and they look hungry, so theyll give them 'just a few flakes'......of course, no matter what I say, they think that 'just a few flakes wont hurt them' i almost always have a constipated fishy

anyhow, they are in an overstocked 20 gal, which I change somewhere around 6-8 gallons every 5 or 6 days.

How much do you think plants would lower this??

I finally got my own test kits, and my NitrItes are close/below .25....BUT....when I used to get my water checked at PetCo, they said my Nitrates/ites were alwasy good, but my PH was off, I just fixed the PH, and now the nitrAte thing happened??? was it like this all along or what?!?

what should I do??

Well as far as the plants they will help it, but at a very slow rate. Something you can't count on to initially lower it, but maybe help you out in the long run.
Hard to say on what they told you was ok. Most workers in a lfs don't know what is good and what is dangerous, so unless they told you the #'s I wouldn't worry about it, just go with what you know.
Ph is important, but gf can stand a variety of PH's, they don't do well with it fluctuating. So try and keep it as stable as possible. What is it at?

If your 20 gallon tank is overstocked and being overfed on top of it,
pH will go down because your buffering capacity is being used up by the biofilter in converting ammonia to nitrAte
nirAte will go up.

I have 4 goldies in a 55 and I have a dickens of a time keeping nitrAte under control.

You have two main things driving this.
The ammonia from the fish.
The heterotrophic bacteria that eat the extra food/fish poop and produce more ammonia. I also have to buffer with baking soda at each water change to keep pH up in the 7s.

Do you vacuum when you do water changes?

Any plans for a larger tank?

You need to do a series of daily partial water changes to get nitrAte down below 20, and then use your nitrAte test to decide how much water to change out to try and keep nitrAte under 40ppm by the next water change. That should also help to keep pH stable depending on the KH of your tap water.

Well....I have 4 in the 20 gal....I do need a bigger tank...I would LOVE to get a 40 breeder soon(my ultimate goal is 1 tank big enough to house all my 10 goldies together...100?? ).....maybe Xmas or Bday, both comming up soon. ...

I talked to everyone about feeding the fish, and for now, I think they'll listen(my mom is the worst offender....she alwasy feeds them to show them off to HER friends)

I do vaccuume with every water change. I do a half and half thing(dont know if it matters) I take out 3 gallons w. the gravel vac, then the rest I just suck out in a big hose w/o the vac.

Well, would doing bigger water changes help, along with doing themmore frequently??

My PH is finally steady at 7.0-7.2. I dont have to add baking soda with every change anymore....its staying a little better.

Here is my big question though.....I have 2 10 gals too with 2 goldies and a snail each. So theyere overstocked at the same ratio as the 20 gal(4 goldies and 2 snails). After my bout with Ich was over, I have had no problems EVER with PH. I tested my Nitrates/ites too, and the ITES are 0 in both, and the ATES are about 10-15 in both. How is this??