HELP REDUCE NITRATES!

[Phantom Thief]

Why dont you add some fast-growing plants. Amazon swords, when they start growing, you'll find yourself wanting MORE nitrates, since they suck out tonnes of it.

P.T.

 

[yhbae]

Why dont you add some fast-growing plants. Amazon swords, when they start growing, you'll find yourself wanting MORE nitrates, since they suck out tonnes of it.

P.T.

This is true. Heck, even java ferns do a good job in reducing nitrate levels if you have enough of them. My community tanks have nitrate levels houvering at 5, no higher, mainly thanks to java ferns.

 

[Pointy_kitty]

i have java ferns in one tank already and java moss in the other
both plants are hard to find and usually quite expensive and ugly (the ones i have came with brown spots and are very beat up looking and small)
i have low lights (15W in both 20 gallons) and the canopy only has one place for a 2 prong flourescent bulb
its way too pricey to buy a new light fixture and different bulbs and i am not crafty enough to build my own

so more plants (especially non-low lights) are out of the question

 

[yhbae]

Although we are going off the topic, that is interesting...

One of my tank is a 25g, and I only have 20w light in there. Java Ferns absolutely thrive in that tank. In fact, it is that tank that allowed me to place java ferns in every tank I own right now. At the begining, I also used that tank to multiply java moss as well. Java moss are now in other smaller breeder tanks, again with low lighting conditions and they look very good so far...

Here's the picture...

This is one of the tank where nitrate level never exceeds 5...

 

[Sky042]

my anachris consumes nitrates fast.

Out of curiosity have you checked your Tap water nitrate levels?
You might not be lowering your levels with your current water change methods.

 

[rvm]

i have checked my tap water and there are very little nitrates

she (or he, sorry don't know ) ) has done that.

I don't think that 40-50 is really too much to be concerned about. I have high tap water nitrates and use a filter to get rid of them, but both my tanks hover between 40-50. One of them is quite heavily planted, the other has a lot of java fern.

The chemicals you are asking about are actually filter media. Nitrazorb and Nitrasafe are the 2 I've looked into. Nitrazorb claims to reduce ammonia and nitrite as well (dunno why you'd need to since if you've cycled properly both should be a 0 anyway, so it seems like a bit of a pointless claim!!)
I've never used them, but from what I gather they use the same sort of stuff that is in my tap water filter which gets rid of 100% of nitrates.
Once they are used up, you can recharge them by soaking them in a salt water solution, and they work again.
The only thing that puts me off buying them (other than they are quite expensive) is my concern that when they stop being effective, you will end up getting a spike of nitrates unless you spot that they've run out, and recharge them straight away.

 

[CFC]

If your tapwater has a lower nitrate level than your tank and water changes do not lower the nitrate levels then your tank is over stocked, thats it put simply.
The inch per gallon rule is only a rough rule of thumb for keeping standard community fish, once you start stocking fish like angels the rule goes out of the window and its down to common sence, imo your tank is a little ovestocked particually as if you take the tanks true volume of water, after displacement from decor etc it is probably closer to 18 gallons, use this calculator to see for yurself http/users.bluecarrots.com/dave.mann/pet...in/tankcalc.htm

There are a number of nitrate asorbing medias on the market but as i am in England i couldnt comment on which one would be best on the US market, i have had good success with KENT nitrate sponge granules but these need to be placed into a mesh bag and used in a external canister filter.

 

[nero]

I might be setting myself up to be yelled at here, but I thought 40-50 nitrates was really not anything to be worried about.. so are you getting that reading after, or before your water change? If after a week you get a reading of 40, I would say thats not to bad, just change more of the water. I change 50% of the water in my 30L every week, and it has never mini-cycled.
I mean, i recall reading somewhere that fish can survive in 1000ppm nitrates (not that they should have to)...but my point is that we just use nitrates as an indicator of the water quality. I.E, just because you have little nitrate doesnt mean your waters good, and visa-versa.
So my final statement would be: are your fish happy and healthy? if they act perfectly normal, then would I be completely stupid to say that you dont have anything to worry about?

 

[luxum]

If your tapwater has a lower nitrate level than your tank and water changes do not lower the nitrate levels then your tank is over stocked, thats it put simply.

Hate to say it, but this is true. There are a couple ways to fix it. Remove some of the fish load. Change the water more frequently, try 20% 2 times per week or more often until the levels come down. Add live plants that will suck up nitrate, water sprite (or any floater, really) is a good choice in your situation, if you just let it float at the surface it will get plenty of light from being so close to the bulb. Any of these would help, combining all of them would help a lot.

I might be setting myself up to be yelled at here, but I thought 40-50 nitrates was really not anything to be worried about..

People say nitrates are ok under 40ppm but imo many fish that are sensitive or borderline are weakened by long term exposure to nitrates. Their immune systems become compromised and they succumb to common diseases of ornamental fish. I think for most tropicals it is more appropriate to shoot for nitrates below 20ppm or even lower.

 

[nero]

hmm, thanks luxum,
yeah I spose. I was just adding my 2c worth. But I think we still need to know exactly when these readings are taken?
In any case it seems everyone agrees that bigger water changes are fine!

 

[cometcattle]

Would adding an extra HOB filter help her at all?

 

[luxum]

Probably not, aerobic freshwater filters don't reduce nitrates.

 

[yhbae]

Adding HOB cannot help reduce nitrates. The fact that there's high (relatively speaking of course, 50 nitrate shouldn't kill fishes) concentration of nitrate means fishes are producing significant amount of ammonia to begin with.

Personally, I think the best way to solve this "problem" is to up the water change, by either increase the change volume or more frequent changes (probably better).

Also, given your foot print of the tank (same as 15g long), I don't think your tank is under-stocked either.

 

[CFC]

Actually adding more aerobic biological filtration would just increase the problem as the nitrates would just be created even faster, if anything modern biological filters are actually victims of their own success as they are so efficient at breaking down ammonia and nitrite in the water column into nitrate, it is this reason that the majority of marine fish keepers have moved away from using the highly efficient wet/dry filters. Adding a anerobic filter to the tank would help as this utilises bacteria that survive by consuming the oxygen part of NO3 (nitrate) and converting it to nitrogen gas which disperses into the atmosphere, but these filters are expensive and would probably cost more than the tank set up did.

With all said to be absolutely honest a nitrate reading of 40 to 50 ppm isnt much to worry about unless you are keeping delicate species or are trying to breed egg laying fish, nitrates are not considered dangerous to common community type fish until they exceed 100ppm. Since the nitrates come out of my taps at 50ppm most of my tanks run with a nitrate level of around 60 to 70 ppm and my fish suffer no ill effects, the only real reason to start worrying about nitrates is if you have algea problems.

 

[yhbae]

Actually adding more aerobic biological filtration would just increase the problem as the nitrates would just be created even faster, if anything modern biological filters are actually victims of their own success as they are so efficient at breaking down ammonia and nitrite in the water column into nitrate, it is this reason that the majority of marine fish keepers have moved away from using the highly efficient wet/dry filters.

That is an interesting fact...