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you do not really need to add things to remove nitrate, just do more water change.. however, you should avoid overstocking of fishes
Is it advisable to have nitrate removal for planted tank in the case of heavy fish load which nitrate level shoots up very fast?
I know plants need nitrate. So what if I would use only small amount in the filter or only insert it once in a few days when the level gets too high. Without such control, I will need to change water every 2 days.[]
you do not really need to add things to remove nitrate, just do more water change.. however, you should avoid overstocking of fishes
Tay,
What is your NO3 level at the end of a week?
You do PMDD for fertilising? Just dose K, TE and P. Soon your NO3 will drop.
Even with moderately high fish loads, the plants are more than capable of removing NO3.
I have almost 40 fishes in my 2-ft(~50L) tank. I still have to add NO3 to keep up with the uptake.
If you have accumulation, your plants may be limited by something. Take a good look at your fertilisation, CO2 and lighting.
BC
Thanks for you guys' helpful response.
I am sure that my lighting and CO2 are sufficient. I have 0.25ppm PO4, 1ppm Fe, trace element. But my NO3 can increase from 5ppm to over 40ppm in 2 days. My tank is heavily planted.
Could it be the fish food? Cos sometimes some frozen blood worms got trapped in the turning water current at the filter outlet and the fish are not able to eat them.
Try stopping or reducing the feeding and see if the NO3 still rises.
Did you insert any root tabs that contain N? If you did, those may be leaching NH3 or NO3 into the water column.
BC
No K added?
Plant Physiology by Taiz and Zeiger
How much water do you change each time? If you do 50%, you should measure ~20ppm after the change, half of 40ppm. You must have done quite a big water change every 2 days to get 5ppm, aren't you? If you are not then consider getting another test kit.----------------
On 8/20/2003 6:53:59 PM
But my NO3 can increase from 5ppm to over 40ppm in 2 days.
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May I ask wat is TE eh.... confused...----------------
On 8/20/2003 3:55:40 PM
Tay,
You do PMDD for fertilising? Just dose K, TE and P. Soon your NO3 will drop.
----------------
May I ask wat is TE eh.... confused...----------------
On 8/20/2003 3:55:40 PM
Tay,
You do PMDD for fertilising? Just dose K, TE and P. Soon your NO3 will drop.
----------------
Trace elements....stuff like Seachem flourish and TMG are trace elements for plants.
Plant Physiology by Taiz and Zeiger
It's not the NO3 build up that's the real problem, but the NO3 has to come from somewhere, NH4.
NH4 even if you have a great filter such as a wet/dry, will still cause algae even if you do large water changes, maybe every day or maximum of every two days may prevent this, but I predict nasty algae at some point down the line.
Do your self and the fish a favor, reduce feedings, and/or reduce fish load, heck, just buy another tank if you have to insist on having all these fish.
Overloading the tank is the best way to cause algae.
No plant tank will consume much more than 3-5ppm a day of NO3 FYI at optimal conditions.
Nor would I attempt to add that much food to make it up to this amount.
I also wonder how good the test kit is that you are using. I tend to doubt the NO3 CAN rise that much in 2 days without high NH4 levels. Most NO3 test kits are notoriously bad and inaccurate.
How many fish/frequency of feeding are you doing/have might I ask?
You would have to really be over feeding/have a high fish load etc to do this.
Regards,
Tom Barr
I must admit that I have high fish load:
6 glow light tetra
2 SAE
1 Otto
2 1.5" discus
All of them in 15 Litre of water!
I feed them sparingly twice a day.
Even with that kind of overloading, I too wonder if they can produce so much NO3 in a day 15mg/l x 15 litre = 225mg a day!
And I really have BGA but spreading slowly whenever I have more frequent water change.
PeterGwee: My K comes from KNO3 and KHPO4.
BcLee: I do have fertilizer sticks inserted in the gravel.
Do you dose the right amount for K2NO3?
My suggestion is use K2SO4 for your K instead, and stop dosing KNO3. Then find out whether it's still so high before deciding what to do next.
Lose the Discus, that's like owning an elephant in a high rise apartment.
You have no business keeping them in such a ridiculously tiny tank.
SAE's will out grow the tank fast also.
A few shrimps, 3-4 and the glow lights, not much else(the otto is fine).
You are going to have issues till you deal with that.
Regards,
Tom Barr
I know the two discus are giant monsters. Will transfer them away when I have time to setup a bigger tank.
Thanks.
Aquatic plants, with very little exception, prefer ammonia/ammonium to nitrate. In fact, most have to be completely starved of ammonia before they
will touch the nitrate. This is because they must expend more resources/energy to convert it back to ammonia, which= adding more elements. This also means any extra effort on your part to increase biological filtration is more than unnecessary in a heavily planted tank. Terrestrial plants love nitrate. Allowing the fully developed roots of a pothos consisting of 8-10 stems/per 100 liters to grow into your tank will drop nitrate levels signifigantly. The best method is to have it growing out of a large external filter with a light source above it. Having it directly in such a water flow should drop nitrate 5-10ppm in less than 2 days, and it will continue to drop until it is unreadable.It is much more efficient than Nitra-Zorb or other products. Just make sure the filter return is well below the water line to minimize CO2 loss. My geuss with your nitrate spiking so quickly is that you have some aggresive form (intentional or not) of biological filtration competing with your plants. This could be caused by using a bio-wheel, sponge filter, undergravel filter, etc. or a lack of elements added for your plants, esp. CO2, iron and potassium- even light. Using an external plant will increase your element use. However, if you are already adding enough elements, using more will only reward you with a nice algae bloom.
Remember all this when you get a bigger tank, a 15 lt will never fully stabilize and will
require excessive maintainance.
----------------
On 8/24/2003 5:42:11 AM
Aquatic plants, with very little exception, prefer ammonia/ammonium to nitrate. In fact, most have to be completely starved of ammonia before they
will touch the nitrate. This is because they must expend more resources/energy to convert it back to ammonia, which= adding more elements. This also means any extra effort on your part to increase biological filtration is more than unnecessary in a heavily planted tank. Terrestrial plants love nitrate. Allowing the fully developed roots of a pothos consisting of 8-10 stems/per 100 liters to grow into your tank will drop nitrate levels signifigantly. The best method is to have it growing out of a large external filter with a light source above it. Having it directly in such a water flow should drop nitrate 5-10ppm in less than 2 days, and it will continue to drop until it is unreadable.It is much more efficient than Nitra-Zorb or other products. Just make sure the filter return is well below the water line to minimize CO2 loss. My geuss with your nitrate spiking so quickly is that you have some aggresive form (intentional or not) of biological filtration competing with your plants. This could be caused by using a bio-wheel, sponge filter, undergravel filter, etc. or a lack of elements added for your plants, esp. CO2, iron and potassium- even light. Using an external plant will increase your element use. However, if you are already adding enough elements, using more will only reward you with a nice algae bloom.
Remember all this when you get a bigger tank, a 15 lt will never fully stabilize and will
require excessive maintainance.
----------------
Just two days ago I changed my filter sponge as it was very dirty. It must had millions of nitrifying bacteria on it. Coincident enough, out of curiosity, I adjusted the light higher so that it shines on a few Bacopa monnieri that have grown out of the water surface. Since then NO3 test did not go above 10ppm.
I wonder if those two factors played a part in it. If so, can I say that : by changing the filter sponge, I removed a lot of nitrifying bacteria that used to convert nitrite to nitrate. The ammonia was absorbed by the plants which did not by-produce nitrate like what the bacteria do? At the same time, the Bacopa monnieri above water surface were given more light by accident and were absorbing more ammonia than before and further reduced the production of nitrate?
I realized now how amazingly complicated the system of nature can be.[:0]
There are just too many valuable lessons I've learnt since the setting up of my mini tank. They will come handy when it's time I set up bigger tanks.
Thanks.
Resistance is futile, you will be administrated!
OR...
By you could have just removed lots of decomposing stuff from your filter by changing the filter sponge.
Plants take ammonia first, at the same time bacteria is competing for the same ammonia. There's very little chance that ammonia remains in the water in any measurable amount if you have plants and a sufficient bacteria colony. Bacteria converts the ammonia to nitrite, then another set of bacteria converts the nitrite to nitrate. The plants will take up some of that nitrate to make up for any lack of ammonia.
If you didn't change anything to make the majority of your plants (not just the emmersed bacopa) to increase uptake of nitrates/ammonia, I doubt the nitrate spike would have gone away due to the removal of the bacteria. Besides, the bacteria colony (if I remember correctly) will double in size every 24hrs and quickly grow back to pre-change size within a few days.
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.
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On 8/25/2003 9:10:31 AM
OR...
By you could have just removed lots of decomposing stuff from your filter by changing the filter sponge.
Plants take ammonia first, at the same time bacteria is competing for the same ammonia. There's very little chance that ammonia remains in the water in any measurable amount if you have plants and a sufficient bacteria colony. Bacteria converts the ammonia to nitrite, then another set of bacteria converts the nitrite to nitrate. The plants will take up some of that nitrate to make up for any lack of ammonia.
If you didn't change anything to make the majority of your plants (not just the emmersed bacopa) to increase uptake of nitrates/ammonia, I doubt the nitrate spike would have gone away due to the removal of the bacteria. Besides, the bacteria colony (if I remember correctly) will double in size every 24hrs and quickly grow back to pre-change size within a few days. In other words, whether the plants are taking ammonia or nitrates, the end-sum before and after the sponge-change should be about the same if ammonia competition is the main factor of the spike.
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That's true as well.
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