View Full Version : Nitrate Hogging Plants
Roan Art
02-03-2006, 10:18 PM
Are any of these plants considered real nitrate hogs:
Bolbitis heudelotti (four very small pieces)
Vallisneria caulescens (at least seven of these with many plantlets)
Ceratophyllum demersum (very small plant)
Cyperus helferi (three)
Monosolenium tenerum (two clumps)
Cryptocoryne blassii (one)
Aponogeton Undulatus (two)
Cryptocoryne ciliata (one)
Blyxa japonica (six)
Myriophyllum tuberculatum (eight?)
Microsorium brassii (one)
Of all of them, would it be the vals? I am dosing 20ppm every waterchange (4 days) and with my tap nitrates of 7, for 27ppm. This puts me at 0 on day three. The plants go through almost 30ppm of nitrates in 3 days. My phosphates are at 2.0 out of the tap and 1-1.5 at the end of day 3.
Is 10ppm of nitrate per day normal for the plants that I have in there? Or are they sucking it up because there is so much phosphate?
Roan
The Vals are hogs, but so can hornwort be, and the same for the Apon. Plant mass would deteremine which was eating the most, but it is likely all. Bolbitis is too slow to be hungry. I don't do Blyxa or milfoils.
Roan Art
02-04-2006, 5:40 AM
Thanks, RTR :)
Roan
Thanks for posting this question Roan Art. Just this last week I was reading about vegetable filters and wondered which plants in particular would be good nitrate hogs.
Roan Art
02-04-2006, 11:16 AM
RTR, I believe, has a vegetable filter set up. He's the man to ask about that :)
Roan
RTR, I believe, has a vegetable filter set up. He's the man to ask about that :)
Roan
Yep! Thanks. I believe I read RTR's article some time back on another site. I will have to go back and dig that one up. Meanwhile, I found two more plants listed that eat up nitrate... Azolla (Fairy Moss) and Duckweed. Other specific bog plants such as Watercress were mentioned.
[Edit:] Anacharis too, by the way. :)
Currenting operating 4 veggies filers: 1) 20-long w/emerse Crinums w/Java Moss submerse, 2) 33XL with Val, 3) 20-long w/Hygrophila diformis, 4) 15 w/H.diformis.
The veggie filter articles are:
http://www.thepufferforum.com/articles/water/veggie1.html
http://www.thepufferforum.com/articles/water/veggie2.html
The first of the four tanks listed is conventionally lighted 12 on/12 off. The other three are 24/7 lighting trials.
Now how's that for service? :thm: Thanks RTR! :D
You are welcome. Good luck!
Hi Roan. Are you prepping for a veggie filter, cycling a tank, what? Just wonderin.
absmin
02-05-2006, 10:55 AM
This is interesting. I have a nitrate level consistently up around 20-40 ppm. I was thinking of a way to do this without using chemicals, and I just can't do more water change per week (2 now). Thanks Roan for the question, and thanks RTR for the idea.
Roan Art
02-05-2006, 1:06 PM
Hi Roan. Are you prepping for a veggie filter, cycling a tank, what? Just wonderin.
Trying to figure out who is eating all my nitrates! I'm sick of dosing dosing dosing KNO3. ARGH! I dose 30ppm and it's GONE in 3 days easy. If I push the CO2 up, they eat even MORE!
Hey, if I feed the roots heavier, would that cut them back on the nitrates, do you think? More fert tabs in the substrate?
Hrm hrm.
Roan
Tablets provide local fertilization to specific plants, if that's what yer thinkin'. Feed the hogs through the roots? Another option would be to have a soil based substrate. Liquid ferts are considered short term, after all. :)
Here is an interesting, albeit high level, article about nitrate uptake. You might want to jump down to the sections beginning with "Discussion". After reading it, though the discussion is more about the relationship between nitrate and water, I wondered if it would be only a matter of adjusting the amount of light your plants are receiving. There were a few statements higher up in the content that alluded to light adjustment.
http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/50/334/613.pdf
[Edit:] Isn't what you describe normal for a heavily planted tank?
Roan, so what didja find out?
Roan Art
02-08-2006, 10:21 PM
I found out that trying to read that gave me a severe headache :)
Seriously -- VROOOOOOOOOOOOOM! -- right over my head for the most part.
Yah, I'm sure that much nitrate is normal for a heavy planted tank. The problem is trying to beat down the phosphates at the same time.
Out of my tap they are 2.0+, to match that in nitrates it's 20ppm, so with my plants sucking back 10ppm a day, I would have to dose at 10ppm a DAY to keep up with the phosphate amount. No way am I going to sock three days worth -- 50ppm -- in my tank at one time.
I'm trying a new tactic atm. Trying to bring the phosphates in the tank down somewhat -- to at least 1.0 -- which should help a lot and lessen the amount of nitrates I need to keep a balance. I started doing this four day ago and the brown ick has been decreasing rapidly.
Today I sheared off all the leaves that had brown algae on them and noticed some nice GREEN algae forming on the rocks and driftwood. Nice algae. I like algae in a tank, GREEN algae. I think it makes it more natural. I don't even mind beard algae if it's just light fuzz. I have some beard in all my tanks (iron is .2 out of the tap) and it's not a biggie at all.
All the new leaves I saw had no brown on them. Just the old ones. Tank looks like it had a fight with a lawn mower :)
Roan
RA - if it ain't broke, don't fix it. My office tank got high phosphate tap water (~2-3ppm, not very consistent), and I kept the nitrate about 10-15ppm. I had no alage issues once the tank matured a bit. But, I did not have very high light - 160W T12 over a 55, 10 hours per day. If you do have high light (>3 WPG) and C02 (=30ppm), you only have to keep the nitrate from being limited and you should be good. Nitrate supplement 2-3x weekly should do the job.
The 10:1 proportions are a rough rule of thumb. I think that Tom Barr says that the reality is something like 7.xx:1, so this is not a hypercritcal issue. The whole trick with EI seems to be not let the vascular plants go limited and slow down, then you can get problems. A bit of excess of one nutrient is not a make/break issue. Plants hitting the wall on a macro can be.
I found out that trying to read that gave me a severe headache :)
Seriously -- VROOOOOOOOOOOOOM! -- right over my head for the most part.
All the new leaves I saw had no brown on them. Just the old ones. Tank looks like it had a fight with a lawn mower :)
Roan
Me too. I didn't last long before jumping down to the discussion. The one thing that made sense and was easy to accomplish was to back off on the amount of light a bit, i.e., limit one of the requirements. Glad your tank is shaping back up.
Roan Art
02-09-2006, 10:18 PM
RA - if it ain't broke, don't fix it. My office tank got high phosphate tap water (~2-3ppm, not very consistent), and I kept the nitrate about 10-15ppm. I had no alage issues once the tank matured a bit. But, I did not have very high light - 160W T12 over a 55, 10 hours per day. If you do have high light (>3 WPG) and C02 (=30ppm), you only have to keep the nitrate from being limited and you should be good. Nitrate supplement 2-3x weekly should do the job. Okay, I'll try that. Just make sure there are nitrates available and not worry about where the phosphates are exactly.
I also think you hit the nail on the head with one statement, RTR: "once the tank matured a bit". I need to be patient :)
The 10:1 proportions are a rough rule of thumb. I think that Tom Barr says that the reality is something like 7.xx:1, so this is not a hypercritcal issue. The whole trick with EI seems to be not let the vascular plants go limited and slow down, then you can get problems. A bit of excess of one nutrient is not a make/break issue. Plants hitting the wall on a macro can be.Okay. Done deal. I'll just make sure there are always nitrates avail and see how it swings.
I was always taught that, with most plants, pruning off dead or dying leaves allows the plant to focus more on the healthy ones. That was my premise for doing the prune job. Today I have noticed much heavier pearling and lots of newer growth in almost every plant. So, is what I was taught really true and does it apply to aquatic plants as well? It seems to, but I want other opinions.
Roan
Roan Art
02-09-2006, 10:19 PM
Me too. I didn't last long before jumping down to the discussion. The one thing that made sense and was easy to accomplish was to back off on the amount of light a bit, i.e., limit one of the requirements. Glad your tank is shaping back up.Slowly :) I definitely won the war, but I still have to get the enemy out of the occupation zones :D
Roan
We never quite win the war with total rout. We just get, and hopefully keep, things under control and in balance.