too infrequent water changes? or what kind of fertilisers are you dosing your tank? maybe they contain the nitrates.
In my planted tank (the one in this post), my nitrate levels are above 40 ppm. Last night it was up to about 60 ppm.
Bioload: 6 x Pearl Gouramis, 6 x Cories, 1 x Oto, Approximately 20 Yamatos. The water volume is approximately 45 gallons. I don't think I overfeed.
What's causing the high nitrate levels?
Is because the bacteria in my filter are too efficient or what?
Vincent - AQ is for everyone, but not for 'u' and 'mi'.
Why use punctuation? See what a difference it makes:A woman, without her man, is nothing.
A woman: without her, man is nothing.
too infrequent water changes? or what kind of fertilisers are you dosing your tank? maybe they contain the nitrates.
Nope. i also dun think you overload. Nitrate dun come from no where. consider the few possibilities.
1) Over dose fertilizer
2) Substrate leeching nutrients (disturb?).
3) Faulty test kits (reference with water).
I wouldn't worry about it, unless it is constantly this high. If your tank healthy, it will drop very fast.
Change water if it bugs you.
These values are after water change and have been at the levels for quite a while. I do regular 25 to 30% water change every 2 weeks.
The plants are healthy, but the algae problem seems to getting worse.
Vincent - AQ is for everyone, but not for 'u' and 'mi'.
Why use punctuation? See what a difference it makes:A woman, without her man, is nothing.
A woman: without her, man is nothing.
so none of the factors I pointed out is contributing to your nitrates? Please go check your test kit.
Actually, I've kinda suspected my substrate fert for a while... not sure how to verify that accept to take the plunge and uproot the whole tank and replace it. With a one month old son in my hands, that is not an option right now. Anybody got ideas with respect to testing this theory?
I've not checked the test kit (JBL) but have used it with another tank (unplanted tanganyikan cichlid tank) which registers undetectable levels of nitrates.
The liquid fertilizer has no ingredients printed on it... maybe I'll dilute some and use the test kit on it.
Vincent - AQ is for everyone, but not for 'u' and 'mi'.
Why use punctuation? See what a difference it makes:A woman, without her man, is nothing.
A woman: without her, man is nothing.
i think you're knee jerking too much
40~60 isn't that high
jacian had 80 regularly in his discus tank
but like CK says, change water if it bugs you
personally i know it's time to change the water when i have enough patience to sit there for 10 min waiting for the test to complete
hahahaaaa
Don't worry about high nitrate, vinz. My nitrate is even higher >80 ppm. My guess is that the filter's bacteria is quite efficient in converting both food and fish waste. So to reduce the NO3 level, I normally use the lazy method: use floating plants. In my case, duckweed.
WKS,
which also means that your bioload is sooooo high that the ammonium from whatever you dump in does not get taken up by the plants fast enough and the nitrifying bacteria have a chance to use it and convert it to nitrate. Ammonium at alkaline pH (i.e. when you turn off your CO2) will be majority ammonia, which is toxic (to plants and fish). Algae galore!
Duck weed is a double edged sword. while it sucks up nutrients in the water column, it blocks the light. The plants in the shade will not do well, and will not recover from the algae. 80ppm of nitrate is not good if it all came from fish load. Since nitrate is only one of the things that we test in the aquarium, can you imagine all the other things that we dun test to build up in your tank even if you change 20-30% everyweek?
Well CK, my plants and fish are still doing well, in fact they grow taller and fatter respectively. As for duckweed blocking the light, the plants which I have are mainly low light ones. My problem is the java ferns, vals and crypts are growing very well under shade that I have to prune them sooner than I expect.
hi there, mario here, new member.
well would like to know what is ther right level of nitrate in a plant tank?
how the test kit work?
thank
buzz off ... from mario
Good for you. If you found the "balance" and there are no major algae problems, I suppose no one can say that maintaining this high levels of nitrate is no good? But this level of nitrate may not work under different tank conditions.----------------
On 2/24/2002 1:29:07 AM
Well CK, my plants and fish are still doing well, in fact they grow taller and fatter respectively. As for duckweed blocking the light, the plants which I have are mainly low light ones. My problem is the java ferns, vals and crypts are growing very well under shade that I have to prune them sooner than I expect.
----------------
Mario,
there is no "right" level of nitrate... what is recommended is <40ppm and it should drop pretty fast after dosing. but this depends on the types of plants and the setup that you have.
in general, the lower the nitrate the better, but getting zero nitrates means your plants are lacking in nitrogen
and as for high nitrates, 80 isn't considered very high yet
i wouldn't worry about it unless your fish are visibly listless or getting infections of all sorts
Not entirely true. If your tank zero in nitrate doesn't mean your plants zero in nitrogen. the water column is not the only place for plants to grab nitrate from. You can have zero nitrate but plants not nitrogen deficient. izn't that why we put fertilizer tabs at the roots? fertilizing the water column is NOT the only way to feed plants. You will not know if your plants are really nitrogen straved unless you do a tissue analysis. but generally, plants show signs of it when they are nitrogen starved.----------------
On 2/24/2002 2:10:45 PM
in general, the lower the nitrate the better, but getting zero nitrates means your plants are lacking in nitrogen
and as for high nitrates, 80 isn't considered very high yet
i wouldn't worry about it unless your fish are visibly listless or getting infections of all sorts
----------------
80ppm is not high? should wait till fish get stunned growth, algae bloom to consider it as high? fish will probably never experience this amount of nitrate in nature (unless they live in the sewers).
While I sometimes dose high amounts of nitrate, it should drop to zero within a peroid of time and will stay constant at the initial dosing concentration. Again, this is subjective to the tank conditions that you have... but I definitely do not advise to maintain a constant nitrate concentration of 80ppm generally, or start pouring KNO3 into tanks once the water have zero nitrate. Neither nescessary or encouraged.
hmm, i amend that to "the water column is lacking in nitrogen"
din think of that
how can you say high or not high? have we done any studies of nitrates on fish physiology?
until then, we can only give anecdotal measures of nitrate levels being high or not
fact is, ppl have fish thriving and even breeding in water with 80ppm nitrates
this is what i base my comment on
WHO state drinking water NO3 values at 50ppm. While it is true that nitrate is relatively low in toxicity compared to ammonium and nitrite, it is not necessary to maintain (note: not dose) this level of nitrate, especially in a planted tank. What I can say is that, if this level of nitrate works for your tanks and your fish are thriving/breeding, good for you. But it is not a concentration I would advise everyone to maintain at.
Again, I would like to re-emphasize that nitrate is only one of the parameters that we can measure conveniently using test-kits. imagine the all the other parameters that we can't measure and the effects of those in your tanks. Which is why we change water (and again, this is controversial)...
p.s. I thought we were talking about planted tanks?
we are, aren't we?
you bring up a very interesting point
amano DOES measure some parameters that aren't commonly quoted in the aquarium hobby
one i can think of is COD, chemical oxygen demand
and i'm oso a proponent of frequent water changes, yes
Really? So what does COD tells you about the aquarium? Does Amano do BOD as well?
Interesting that you mention that you advocate water changes but maintain high nitrate and add salt to planted tanks. What other "non-standard" things to you do?
1. my tanks don't have high nitrates----------------
On 2/24/2002 9:11:51 PM
Really? So what does COD tells you about the aquarium? Does Amano do BOD as well?
Interesting that you mention that you advocate water changes but maintain high nitrate and add salt to planted tanks. What other "non-standard" things to you do?
----------------
what i'm saying is 80 isn't high enough to make one lose sleep
if you can find one single statement by me advocating adding nitrates, please tell me so i can delete it
2. i add salt to fight ich and chilodonella
once it's gone i change the water out
3. COD tells you how much organic waste there is in the water
what's BOD?
Bookmarks