So I have been keeping up with my tank pretty intensely since the large nitrate spike that I had. I have removed my gravel, and have upped the percentage of water that I am removing. My question is this. What is a good average daily increase in nitrate levels? My last water change is as follows:

12/08/07 44 gallon tank
removed 22 gallons of water.
after water change these are the levels
NO3= 10 PPM
NO2= 0 PPM
NH3/NH4=1PPM
PH=7.3

12/10/07
CURRENT READINGS
NO3= 30PPM
NO2=OPPM
NH3/NH4=0PPM
PH=7.4

So that would be an increase of 15ppm over a two day time period. 7.5ppm per day. is this an unusually high amount or pretty standard? Just so you know, I have three fish in this tank that are 2 years old and about 3.5 inches in length.

I do not think about it in those terms. In general, I know that I can reasonably change out water in my tanks every 4-5 days. When I change, I know that I can easily change out 50-60% of the water at any one time.

I measure what the nitrates are at the end of the 4-5 day period - and if I cannot lower them to at or below 10ppm with a 50-60% water change, I need to change another parameter of the tank - feed less or do not stock it as heavily.

I would look at how often you are willing to change out the water in your tank. Every week - every 7 days? If so, change the tank so that the nitrate level is where you wish it to be. Then, measure it again, 7 days later and calculate out how much water you will need to change out to lower the nitrates to the degree you wish.

If that is a reasonable amount of water, then you have your routine. If it is too much, you will need to change the water more often.

In fully stocked tanks, my nitrates will climb about 10-15ppm within about 4 -5 days. I change out approx 50-60% of the water, taking them back down to 10ppm. In overstocked tanks (yes - I have a few!) I change larger amounts more often. In "lesser" stocked tanks, I can get by with changing less volume, but just as often as the others.....

Make sense?

Makes sense to me. I will wait to see after my 7 day period to see where I am at. One question though, do you think 3 fish in 44 gallons is overstocked?

I would say no. I have a 29g and only two fish. The reason for that is that my fish are going to grow big, like fish should, and I want them to have enough room to be happy and healthy. Right now, my fish are 3 and 4". I have heard that it is 10g per fancy GF, 20g per common or comet. I generally like 15g per fancy and 25 per common. If your fish are double-tailed, then you have almost 15g per fish and that is good. I wouldn't add any more, though.

If they're commons/comets, its a bit overstocked, but not drastically. Depending on their age and size too (bigger fish = more waste). If they're fancies, its definitely not overstocked.

You may want to do decent sized water changes every 2 or 3 days and monitor your nitrate levels before and after each change. If it really does keep increasing at 15 ppm/day, that's a good deal, and would definitely get problematic after more than a few days.

In that case your choices are:
- consider if you're overfeeding - goldfish constantly act hungry anyway
- continuing w/ frequent water changes (reasonable, but a pain) to keep it below ~30
- a bigger tank
- a water conditioner like Prime or, better yet in this case, AmQuel+ (Prime wears off, AmQuel+ doesn't and actually eliminates some of the nitrate as nitrogen in the air). You can try adding a dose or partial of it between weekly water changes and/or along with them, and see how much that helps your nitrate levels.

Note: before trying a new water conditioner, have a good amount of water ready to be go, just in case they react poorly, you can do a large change quickly.