3 weeks since waterchange & Nitrate strange!

[CWO4GUNNER]

I held off for 3 weeks on today's water first becasue I wanted to try a new water mix and 2nd becasue I wanted to put my relatively new nitrate HOB filter to the test against my other tanks without one.

As suspected the 60 gallon with the two 5" messy Oscars and one 5" Electric blue had lower then expected nitrate levels, much lower at 10PPM. Normally this is the aquarium with the highest nitrate readings so needless to say I am very happy with the results of my Pothos bare root plant performance, and the plant is growing leaf fast now strait up the wall.

But what has got me completely stumped is while all my other aquariums without a nitrate filter have expectedly higher nitrate numbers 30 PPM, I am completely astonished that my Goldie 80 tank has been running nitrate at 5 PPM now since the last waterchange. This is a tank that has five fish inside three 5" comets and two 6" Koi that get fed enough once a day. The only difference I can think might contribute to the low nitrates are the vegi diet, the FX5 & AC 110 on this 80 tank, the gypsun hardwood tree stump I have inside. I cant think of any other differences other then colder water about 70F.

API liquid test was confirmed 3 times, Amm 0, Nitra 5, Ntri 0, PH 7.8. anyone with goldies have this happen?

 

[CWO4GUNNER]

Well I researched this and the only thing I could find was that the goldie tank must have some kind of denitrification going on that is turning the nitates into gas and escaping from the tank. It can happen mostly in SW tanks with thick sand beds. I only have 2 inches of silica fine sand. Maybe the tree stump is supporting denutrifying bacteria.

Well Ill just have to see if it happens again to my goldie 80 tank in 3 weeks. But in the mean time the data shows 60 tank with the Pothos Nitrate filter is working great so Im moving ahead and investing in $8 Pothos plants and installing them bare root into HOB reservoirs and installing them on the back of my other tanks using just one 20 Watt tank light flipped on its side at night to make them grow fast as these planst require very little light.

 

[Stargazer53]

Interesting. I wonder if other houseplants would work as well? Such as Spathiphyllums, Spider plants, water bamboo, etc? And just in case you did not know, pothos can easily be propagated through cuttings. I have them in my home as well and when I share plants with friends, I simply snip and plant.

 

[CWO4GUNNER]

I tried the Chinese bamboo or money tree and while it never died, it never grew fast enough to impact nitrates although it looked good. I tried Hedra Ivy or commonly called English Ivy becasue it is supposed to grow fast and be indestructible, while the Hedra did drop my nitrates for awhile Iit suddenly started to die becasue indoors without enough UV it is very susceptible to microscopic leaf mites. I found out Pothos is practically imune to almost all plant pest and leaf disease, much more low light tolerant and faster growing.

Turing your aquarium hood light upside down at night to shine on the plant from underneath has really made a big difference its its growth and since the bulb is only 20 Watts (plant light) I think ist energy well spent. Ill post a picture of what it looks like.

 

[Dr. Awkward]

That's really cool. I had no idea pothos was such a good nitrate sponge. I used to keep them in my African cichlid tanks resting on top of the holey rock but I never realized how much they helped the water quality.

 

[CWO4GUNNER]

As you can see its really starting to take off with new sprouts and the roots starting to grow into the filter pads. Still haven't figured out the best way to get the roots to release the filter pads other then a razor blade, but unlike my privious attempts with Hedra Ivy and Bamboo, I will wait until the filters get bad and then only cut and replace 1 pad at a time so that the plant doesn't go into shock.

The plant apparently gets all its nutrients from the aquarium since the entire volume of aquarium water gets pumped past the roots about 200 times per day so nothing gets stagnant.

As you can see below how convenient it is to simply flip a light fixture on its side to provide more lighting then these plants really need using a standard 18 inch 20 Watt aquarium/plant grow light which has really made this plant grow.

Since Pothos can grow from regular room or distant window lighting, I only use the flip fixture trick after dark 8pm until the next morning 8am about 12 hours which is not allot of energy when you consider that most planted tanks need hundreds of Watts. I plan to have this plant spread out across the walls and ceiling, the bigger it gets, the more nitrates it will need to support its structure and grow so it can only get better since there is not room restriction.

Side view of aquarium Aqua-tech 40-60 HOB with Pothos growing out ogf the resivoir and the right light fixture flipped on its side toward the plant.

Same 60 tank and setup viewed from the right front. Please excuse the hard water spots I should have cleaned up before taking the photos.