Bamboo lowers nitrates?

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accord728

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Dec 3, 2009
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Chalfont, PA
I need some help in lowering my nitrates in my 120g tank. It’s a well stocked tank. I do 3 water changes that equal 50% change and one gravel cleaning a week. This week, I added another day to the water change so it’s going to be more than 50% this week. My nitrates are between 20-40ppm. Most times, I believe they are around to 40ppm (hard to compare colors on the chart). My tap water is about 10ppm. I know that the tank is in the safe zone but I am trying to lighten some work load without the concerns of the nitrates being in the 40ppm. Don’t miss understand me, I enjoy doing this stuff but I have a lot of other things going on around the house, work and church. :nilly:

Anyway, I am looking for ways to keep my nitrates below 20ppm if it’s possible. I have been reading a few things online about bamboo used in filters to lower the nitrates. There are a lot of mixed reviews on Google some swear by it others say it does not make a difference. Any suggestions or experience with this???

Thank you,
Tim
 
most live plants will use nitrate and should help to lower nitrate.

remember tho the bamboo must only have the roots in the water.
 
The reason why I was thinking bamboo is that I do not have the setup nor do I have the time for maintaining a planted tank. I was thinking bamboo (if I hang them in the tank) would require very little maintenance and light.
 
Like Star_Rider said, make sure you have the bamboo immersed, not submerged.
Also, adding ANY plants should help, especially fast growing ones, like frogbit, java moss, anacharis and hornwort.
 
If you have an extra HOB, can get one, or have a large open chanber you can try emergant growth plants. Meaninging you stick the plants roots in the chamber of the filter,out of the water, and let them grow. I'm not sure how fast the bamboo they sell at pet shops is, but in general, the faster the growth the more nitrates it will suck up. Look for plants popular to pond filters, I know watercress is pretty common, and I'm sure someone else will pop on with more examples, theres a few people who go the emergant route. You could also get a bunch of hornwort, and let it float. Hornwort is a nitrogen sponge, is dead easy to grow, and it's cheap.

and +1 to biomajorstudent, I have kept all those plants in a VERY low light low tech tank, no ferts, .8 wpg, no co2
 
accord728 said:
The reason why I was thinking bamboo is that I do not have the setup nor do I have the time for maintaining a planted tank. I was thinking bamboo (if I hang them in the tank) would require very little maintenance and light.
Click to expand...

I have to point out that a planted tank is less maintenance, not more. Setting it up takes effort, but if it's planted enough, you hardly have to do anything to it other than feed your fish and replace evaporated water. I remember how, in my first planted tank, I realized that one of the fish had died and freaked out. How the heck was I supposed to find the fish and get it out? Especially since you're not supposed to disturb the substrate much in a planted tank (a bunch of stuff that's good for plants but bad for fish settles in it). It was really trippy when my local aquarists group told me to just not worry about it - the plants would use the nutrients from the decomposing body, continuing the dual benefit of giving the plants a boost and keeping the water safe.

So your two concerns are light and the price of planting a 120 gallon. And if you have enough light, that's all you need. If they need more nutrients - I'm serious about this - add a few more fish. If you can overstock without making unhappy fish (which plants help with, as well), you're actually benefiting the plants. I have a ten gallon dwarf puffer tank - two puffers, five otocinclus and a couple of amano shrimp. It has a huge, beautiful growth of wisteria (from a single bunch) that goes to the top of the water and covers almost half of the tank, making a neat little jungle where the roots hang down. The puffers definitely love it. The other half of the surface is taken over by hornwort. That's the only maintenance I have to worry about as far as plants, because every once in a while, I have to take a bunch of it out and add it to another tank or give some to a friend. It grows like nobody's business. There are some vals, java fern, and crypts in there to round it out. I have a bottle of Flourish Excel that I learned I never needed. The same with the Tetra FloraPride I bought.

Of course, this may limit some of the plants you can get (don't get a plant that's marked as "advanced care"), but not by much, and there are some others (I've noticed this with swords) that will do okay but simply won't grow any bigger than what you get and if you get it too big to sustain, it'll just grow smaller (the bigger leaves will die off and smaller ones will grow in their place). Still, don't reject the idea offhandedly.
 
Can you tell me what fish you have in there?

Please let me say, from personal experience......putting plants in a low tech, low light tank doesn't always work the way you think it's going to. I have hard water, nitate comes in around 10ppm from the tap, low tech, low light tanks and can kill duckweed, java fern, wisteria, camboba, anacharis, hornwort.....all the supposedly fast growing, nitrate eating plants. In large, deep, low light, hard water tanks.....these plants die. I do have some of the most beautiful crypts you'll ever run across. It's enough light and they love hard water. But they are not fast growers, they take more nutrients from the roots than from the water column, so it was very frustrating to read all of the information about plants lowering nitrate and not having that happen in my tank. This is my discus tank. Discus are huge ammonia producers. Ammonia eventually gets converted to nitrate. So unless I want to severely limit my number of discus in that tank, I'm stuck with nitrate at 20-40 ppm. I do a 75-80% water change each week which brings the nitrate level back down to about 12. All of my fish and inverts in that tank thrive long term. I finally stopped pulling my hair out over the nitrate level in this tank and feeling like I was slowly murdering them. It is what it is, it's never going to match all those people out there with the enviable 5 ppm nitrate level.....but those 20-40 ppm levels are really not harming the fish, it's an acceptable, level. It's driving US nuts, but the fish are fine. My discus spawn and I get wrigglers in this tank! If you have water and lighting similar to what I have in my tank, cut your work down a little, do one large water change a week....I mean large! If your nitrate level is at 40, when you change 50% of the water out the level will be 20. If you change 75% of the water out your nitrate level will be even lower. My 2 cents having been there, done that.:grinyes:
 
In my opinion, perhaps it would be easiest and most efficient to do one big change per week, like pinkertd said. If it really bothers you, you could possibly add another smaller change during the week to help keep it manageable before the big change.
 
I have a philadendron right above my tank and then cut an end and stuck it in the hob, it grew massive roots and I never see my nitrate rise above 5. I have very hard water with Na in it due to the water softener so it is also hard for me to keep any plants alive for long.
 
Hmm. I may need to try the philodendron idea. I have a bamboo plant that I meaning to stick in one of my tanks when I can figure out how to prop it up.

I also grow wonderful crypts, but struggle with other easy plants, particularly java fern. I never thought of my water as particularly hard, but it does have a fairly high baseline pH.

I also agree on the large water change idea. I do 80+ percent water changes weekly- basically I drain as much as I can without causing the fish to have to flop over. I've had great success with this method and my fish love playing in the new water as it fills the tank.

I know one person who actually does two back-to-back 80+% water changes. Two 80% back to back changes is equivalent a 96% water change.
 
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