For anyone with Nitrate problems........

A

acefred

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Dec 26, 2004
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I've read over and over about NITRATE problems people have (and had some myself)..............Through reading and experimenting here is a solution I have found that works great.

I have a 44 gal hex tank and yesterday my nitrates were at 25 (I don't like it this high)

Here is what I do.

Water change and gravel vac ~15 gal
Refill with water 10 gal (the Ph, GH, KH and temp are basically the same as my tank water)
Water change and continue to vac ~15 more gal
Refill with 15 gal
Water change and vac another ~10 gal
Refill and continue to syphone (at the same time) ~15 gal
Stop syphone
Refill tank.

By doing this my nitrates are at 7 (which is my tape water reading) and I have massively cleaned the gravel and didn't effect any fish negatively.............Also managed to change 100 % + of my water.

For any of you with cleaning issues or poor water quality or any other negative point in you tank try this (it works great), but remember the replacement water must be very close to your tank parameters.
 
acefred said:
By doing this my nitrates are at 7 (which is my tape water reading) and I have massively cleaned the gravel and didn't effect any fish negatively.............Also managed to change 100 % + of my water.
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I'd love to agree with you, but the fact is, that this is still not comparable to draining 100% and then refilling (ingnoring the negatives for this large of a change). Each time after you are adding new water, you are draining roughly the same percent of new, clean water as you syphon more out. For example, just in your first draining, you dump 15 gallons (old water), then add about 10 (new water), when you drain 15 gallons this second time, you are removing (roughly) 15% of the 10 gallons (new water) you added just before this. This is about 1.5 gallons that is being essentially wasted and doesn't count toward cleaning your water at all. I hope I'm making my point here. Not sure how clearly I'm explaining. But each time you refill and drain, you are removing more and more clean water as you drain dirty water. I would think you would be better off just doing a 50% weekly. If that's not enough do it twice weekly. If that still isn't enough, either you own Discus, or you have WAY too many fish! ;) The more frequently you change water, the larger amounts of water that can be changed. I know of several Discus breeders who do 75% or higher daily or every other day. Your current method seems to be too much work and less efficient in the long run. Of coarse, it DOES WORK, so if you really like that...do it. :)
 
I have to agree that regular maintenance is the best think, I normally do 25-50% water changes and vac every 2 weeks, but I have had nitrate problems once before and did this method also and it works great.

By doing 50% daily changes the work is more for me, remove decor and then vac and refill, then replace decor this would take about 40 min a day (don't have the time).....So this method which took 1hr today is the best method for cleaning ALL my gravel (a normal water change and vac only partially cleans it) and lowers everything.

Another option would be to do multiple daily 50% or more changes, but the time again and the idea of still removing the new water also comes into play.

This method replaces limited water at a time and therefore reduces the good water wasted.

It is not something you want to do often but to balance out the chem and do a great cleaning it works very well.
 
To me, stability is more important than an actual titer figure, so long as that figure is within an acceptable range. I had rather do the same partial weekly and keep things stable over longer period than allow gradual degradation of water quality and heroic measures to correct that.
 
Agreed, excellent way for a clean-up (assuming parrameters are the same as tap still) but not the best idea for continued maintenance plan. JMHO
dave
 
I'm not 100% on this, but each time you add new water, it dilutes into the existing water, right? Meaning, the nitrates and other wastes get mixed into the newly added water, so are in fact removed with the next change, either way. Even if some of the water is actually new, it contains the wastes in dilution.
 
OrionGirl said:
I'm not 100% on this, but each time you add new water, it dilutes into the existing water, right? Meaning, the nitrates and other wastes get mixed into the newly added water, so are in fact removed with the next change, either way. Even if some of the water is actually new, it contains the wastes in dilution.
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Ummm....this is basically what I was saying. Good that you agree, though! :)
 
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