High NitrAtes with a heavily planted tank??

James0816

James0816

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Feb 14, 2007
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Shed some light on this for me if someone can....

Heavily planted tanks. Some pretty thick you can't see to the back. EI and PMDD dosing (some tanks EI, some PMDD). Routine weekly water changes.

Do water tests today and so far (3) tanks have tested => 40 NitrAtes!

Just really confused with the maintenance and the plants that this parm is so high.

Needless to say, performing an additional 20% water change at the moment.

Just a little confused as to why so high.
 
Do you have Nitrates in your tap water? I have the same type of problem (my nitrates stay between 40-80ppm), and it was a mystery to me until I found out that I have 10-20ppm Nitrates in my tap water. I have since started using part Spring water a couple of times a month in my WC's.
 
I try to keep nitrates high in my planted tank. If you are dosing those ferts then you are adding the nitrates in the form of nitrogen. Nothing unusual about having that level of nitrate, and nitrate by itself is not very toxic to fish until it is much higher than that. I try to keep mine between 10 and 30 but sometimes it does get to 40. Has been as high as 80 when I goofed and fish were fine.
 
I know you tend to do quite small water changes on some (all?) of your tanks. There used to be a chart of how much what % nitrates drop....

Found 1 over on Loaches.come (cut & paste from there)

change 42.4% weekly which uses 6.06% of the tank water per day, or
change 26.7% twice per week which uses 7.63% of the tank water per day, or
change 17.2% every other day which uses 8.58% of the tank water per day, or
change 9.36% every day which uses 9.36% of the tank water per day, or
use a drip system which uses 10.3% of the tank water per day.

As you can see, fewer larger water changes require the use of less water in order to get the same effect on your nitrate levels. I am sure that you already know this, but this is why I have resisted going to a drip system. I currently do the daily water change option and it would use an extra 3.29 gallons per day if I changed to a drip system. I was thinking of going the other direction and changing water twice per week which would save 6 gallons per day.

There was another similar but I can't find it
 
Tested straight from the tap at ~5. Tested the jugs of aged water at ~5. I do tend to keep all tanks at ~ 20 for the purpose of the planted tank. Never had them go high like this before though. I guess the plants have reached the level where they are taking just what they desire (instead of need).

Just odd.
 
Maybe. It took me about two months to perfect the recipe in the tanks. Something swung somewhere and I didn't catch it.
 
Before ANYONE suggest any changes, 1st is there anything wrong with the tank?
Second, have you calibrated the test kit to ensure it is actually reading accurate over the desired range?
NO3 test kits are simply put, terrible and all over the plant. Unless you calibrate them with a KNOWN standard reference, there is little you can say.

You should make a set of known solutions then test the test kit.
Then you will have confidence(or not), in the test reading.

Do you need 40ppm?
No.......
Does it do any harm?
Absolutely not.

10-30ppm is fine.

Still, without correct test methods, the reading is meaningless.
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/f...83545-calibrating-test-kits-non-chemists.html
If you have a nice scale and want to do a more precise method, this can be done, but the above link will make it fairly easy for the typical plant hobbyist.

Regards,
Tom Barr
 
I thought with EI dosing you are supposed to change 50% of the water per week to "reset" the tank.

Tom is right though, it sounds like your plants are healthy since you described a jungle. Maybe the only change you should make is to increase the size of the water change by 10% or so and adjust that as needed to keep the nitrates at the desired amount.

And I am going to test my test kit right now. Thanks for the link Tom. :dance:
 
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