Water Changes?
- Thread starter tackful
- Start date
p0tluck, I think you're confusing bacteria & nitrate. Beneficial bacteria lives on all surfaces-- on filter media & décor. You don't harm it by vacuuming or water changes. Nitrate is in the water column from dissolved fish waste, & as Bob said, from decomposing debris like fish food & dead leaves.
Do you find areas that collect a lot of waste? You could try rearranging your décor so that doesn't happen so much or at least concentrate vacuuming those areas. Do larger volume WCs each time to get to a healthier nitrate level. How many root tabs do you have? 1 per large sword is plenty & should last 3 months or more.
Do you find areas that collect a lot of waste? You could try rearranging your décor so that doesn't happen so much or at least concentrate vacuuming those areas. Do larger volume WCs each time to get to a healthier nitrate level. How many root tabs do you have? 1 per large sword is plenty & should last 3 months or more.
i have 1 tab per sword yes so 2 total as 2 swords are side by side, wow i have been doing this wrong from the beginning then im new to the hobby but i think i have done okay so far turning a tank you couldnt see anything in into what i have now, so i am okay vacuuming the 66% gravel per week but do you think 60% a week is not enough should i do 50% 2 times a week of just the water? or could i say do my normal 2 25-30% and like 1 extra day of just water say 20% which would bring my water change up to an almost full water change at roughly 86%?
i know theres a lot of conspiracies on nitrates with the majority of 30+ yr long fish keepers saying its not something to worry about but im at a constant 60ppm so if i remove more water per change it would bring it down.. my gravel and filters dont have anything to do with nitrates is that what you're saying because everyone thats ever responded to my past posts on here or other forums have said it could be a filter sponge thats dirty or spots in my gravel with decayed food, fish waste that im not getting to with the vac as to why my nitrates are still high??
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I think it was Joel (FreshyFresh) that tried to explain that if you start with 60ppm nitrate & do 25% WC=45ppm. If in 3 or 4 days it's back to 60 so appx 15ppm every 3 days.
BUT if you did 50% each time the math looks like 60ppm-30 then +15ppm over 3 days=45ppm WC 50%=22.5ppm+15ppm over 3days it's now down to 37.5ppm. Another 3 days +15ppm 50%WC & you're at, well lets call it even 30ppm. It won't take too long with larger WCs to get this high nitrate problem under control...but if you have nitrate in you tap it may take a little longer.
So I hope you can understand the difference between large WCs & smaller more frequent 1's ones. It's not total gallons/week but % change each WC. I find it much easier to do larger WCs less often. Once you get it under control, you can adjust it to maybe 40% or go a few extra days between WCs, that's the balancing act. But you have to test for a while until you get the hang of how much + how often & what you need to do when it gets out of whack.
As for your idea that 30+ year fish keepers say high nitrates are ok, I think you are very mistaken. I've been in the hobby for 35+ years, Bob even longer, Joel + others a good long while. In this day of internet, I'm sure you can find justification for any idea you want to hang onto but it doesn't mean it's best...& we should shoot for better healthier tanks & fish.
Your beneficial bacteria can grow high enough to take care of regular amounts of ammonia & nitrite but it takes a whole heck of a lot more than 2 swords & a couple anubias to make a dent in nitrate, water changes are the best way for you. People like me with a ton of plants actually should add nitrate, something I'm still not good at, lol. Our hobby is about continuing learning & science...& practice...& WCs for me & the OP. There's more than nitrate in the water, that's just easy & cheap for us to test for IMO. (sorry to derail your thread, tackful, but it is kinda related)
BUT if you did 50% each time the math looks like 60ppm-30 then +15ppm over 3 days=45ppm WC 50%=22.5ppm+15ppm over 3days it's now down to 37.5ppm. Another 3 days +15ppm 50%WC & you're at, well lets call it even 30ppm. It won't take too long with larger WCs to get this high nitrate problem under control...but if you have nitrate in you tap it may take a little longer.
So I hope you can understand the difference between large WCs & smaller more frequent 1's ones. It's not total gallons/week but % change each WC. I find it much easier to do larger WCs less often. Once you get it under control, you can adjust it to maybe 40% or go a few extra days between WCs, that's the balancing act. But you have to test for a while until you get the hang of how much + how often & what you need to do when it gets out of whack.
As for your idea that 30+ year fish keepers say high nitrates are ok, I think you are very mistaken. I've been in the hobby for 35+ years, Bob even longer, Joel + others a good long while. In this day of internet, I'm sure you can find justification for any idea you want to hang onto but it doesn't mean it's best...& we should shoot for better healthier tanks & fish.
Your beneficial bacteria can grow high enough to take care of regular amounts of ammonia & nitrite but it takes a whole heck of a lot more than 2 swords & a couple anubias to make a dent in nitrate, water changes are the best way for you. People like me with a ton of plants actually should add nitrate, something I'm still not good at, lol. Our hobby is about continuing learning & science...& practice...& WCs for me & the OP. There's more than nitrate in the water, that's just easy & cheap for us to test for IMO. (sorry to derail your thread, tackful, but it is kinda related)
the thing is it never drops below 60 is what im saying i can test it 2 hours after i do my PWC and its still 60ppm .. thats what im getting at, at NO time ever if my nitrates lower than 60 even after a water change and 100% substrate vac. another thing that is weird is i never have algae EVER , i have to feed my BN blanched veggies and algae tabs cause there no algae in my tank anywhere.
Then either your doing very small WCs or your nitrate test is old. Sometimes the colors are hard to differentiate, my husband sees some colors differently than I do, especially at the "high end" of some. If your eyes & WCs are "good" then it's time for a new test reagent. What you are saying is scientifically impossible...if based on good scientific method & good tests. Do you closely follow the directions on the pkg?...What brand of "test" are you using? Strips are not very accurate & even harder to see color differences. Ain't no "magic" about it.
API master liquid test kit
I do the test as directed about shake my arm off doing the nitrate test (lol)
i drain 16-18 gallons off water each time approx 30-32% PWC twice a week ,
i too have trouble reading the very close shades of reds but other people in the house are also saying im inbetween 40-80 i am going to go down and do a test right after i type this as i just did my PWC yesterday night i think i might video it and upload it to youtube and post it here so you all can see im not imagining things, maybe you all can see what i am doing wrong if anything, i will have to pause it for the 5 min wait period and unpause after the 5 min, wait maybe i can just do the ff option so it isnt a 10 min video i'll see what i can do
So what is wrong with your test kit (what's the date code?), testing or method? I'm not trying to pick a fight but what you're saying isn't possible unless you have quite a lot of nitrate in your tap water, more than the 5%? you've said is there...or you're not changing as much water as it seems to you. Yeah, buckets are heavy, it seems like I'm changing more than I actually am at times...unless my husband is doing the lifting, lol.
If you can't tell the difference in colors for the API test, try adding half the amt of drops...or twice the amt of water...so if it reads 40 that way, it's really 80ppm, for example.
Could be you're overfeeding too...do you feed between WC & testing?
Really, we're trying to help you.
Maybe a moderator could put this in a new thread, we seem to have gone way off the OP's topic & p0tluck has a similar thread going I think, somewhere. I know I've lost the OP's idea, sorry again tackful.
my other thread was about root tabs and ferts where i mentioned in that thread that i do have high nitrates not thinking that it would create a new thread inside of the one i started about root tabs and ferts, i have a bucket that is marked with gallons so i know how much water i remove and water i put back in i did do a video but my video editing software keeps crashing when i try to render it.
as far as my post here its because the heading is "water changes"
i will start a new thread.
