Amount of fish food feedings per day for planted tanks

[PeterGwee]

Hi guys..care to share with me how much you feed your fishes in your planted tanks per day? What kind of food are you feeding? Basically, I'm trying to find out if my food is the cause of high nitrate in my planted tank. (Right after water change - nitrate 5ppm. 3 days after water change - nitrate shoot up to 20ppm...shock man..why?) I verify the test kit against a stock solution of potassium nitrate and found it to be working well..tank is heavily planted also. Duhz...what is going on. Oh..I am feeding once per day previously...now..I start to feed them once per 2-3 days. Hope it does not affect their health. []

[Allen_1971]

I doubt its your food... I feed twice a day... flakes in the morning, and either granules or bloodworms at night. Could it be due to your water change? Did you stir up the gravel during your water change?

[PeterGwee]

Allen..thanks for the input..but nope. I did not stir up my gravel plus the fact the foreground is filled with glosso carpet. I did feed less and the nitrate did not go up during the period..so was trying to conclude if that is the cause. Any people measure their tap for nitrate? What is the result? Mine is zero but the PUB website shows 0.5-15ppm..

[tawauboy]

what are you feeding to your fishes?

i feed with tetra granules and i have to dose kno3 to keep up my no3. my feeding frequency ranges from twice a day to once every 4 days, at random.

[Allen_1971]

Forgot to mention... while 20ppm isn't in the usual 10ppm recommended range, its far from being bad or dangerous to your fish... and if your tank stabilizes out at 20ppm... it just means you can save your dosing KNO3.

[PeterGwee]

I'm feeding those brown powder form of food..(actually don't know what it is but is small enough to fit my neons mouth size..LOL) and tetra tabimin for my cories..now changing the brown powder food to Sera vipan flake food.

Allen..I wouldn't be worried if it stabilizes at 20ppm or 30ppm but the problem is it kept rising like bull's market! OMG..

[tawauboy]

maybe you can stop feeding a day before your water change and don't feed for another 3 days. check your no3 at this point. this may help you to determine if the food that you feed is a major contributor to your no3 problem.

[FC]

PeterGwee,

I normally feed once or twice a day. No problem. Obviously, your plants are not working hard enough or it was unable to due to lack of energy source, the light, and balanced diet.

[joe]

I normally feed them once a day and had no problems at all if there is a weekly/forthnightly water change.

[bclee]

I experienced some leeching of fert tabs which cause high NO3 level. A possible source of NO3.

BC

[juggler]

I feed the fish (in the office tank) 2 or 3 times per day on TetraBits. NO3 usually is 20ppm. Used to be lower at 10ppm when the discus were smaller.
You can try using fast growing plants like Frogbits to help suck up excess NO3. IME, bloodworms are high in N. And it once raise NO3 to 40ppm.

Peter: BTW, how much water you change to get resulting 5ppm NO3 from and earlier 20ppm?

[PeterGwee]

Juggler...in my moment of madness...LOL..I went to change 80% of the tank water to reduce the nitrate level. Luckily, none of the critters and fishes die from it (no bacteria boom after that also...guess the colony of bacteria is still going strong)