Small tank - fast nitrate build up

Hi,

I'm a bit of a beginner at all this. I have a small 6 gallon tank with
a good filter and an airstone. It's planted up and has 3 x 1 inch
pentazona barbs and 2 x 1/2 inch tiny little cat fish which I though
were bagrus ornatus but I've since discovered are pigmy corys(!) I
also have a lot of quite large trumpet snails - at least 5 over 1 1/4
inches and a seemingly endless supply of smaller ones. The tank is
fully cycled and the Ammonia and Nitrite are consistently at 0 mg/l
(testing every other day). But my nitrates rise much more quickly than
I was expecting - I am doing a 30% water change every other day.

Now the tap water round here is reading 10 mg/l and my tank is reading
20 mg/l after a water change and 40 mg/l two days later. It is as if I
have too many fish, but my local fish shop said I could put more than
this in and it would be fine. It's well under an inch per gallon. The
fish seem well and frisky, as are the snails ,in slower, lick the
glass, kind of way.

I was wondering if anyone can give me some more insight into what's
happening?

I thought it could be: (1) large trumpet snails are adding to the
bioload on the tank (2) overfeeding (I give 5 little flakes twice a day
and every other day swap one of these for a tiny bit of brine shrimp or
bloodworm.) (3) too many fish (4) nitrate kit is unreliable (our
water company said nitrate was much lower than I thought it was.) (5)
I'm misunderstanding where my nitrate parameters should be.

Any help would be happily received!

Thank-you JAZZ

.

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