High nitrates on new setup

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buz2au

buz2au
Oct 12, 2005
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Hi all, just setup a 120lt planted tank (2 days ago) after being away from the game for 15years. I've got a nitrate reading of 40ppm on day 1 of setup, did a 50% water change day 2 nitrate still reads 40ppm - tested tap water 0ppm - other test - ammonia 1.0ppm, nitrite 0.25ppm, KH 3, GH 6. could the nitrate reading be from the DYMAX base soil I have in the substrate also doing a fishless cycle
 

NoodleCats

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If you got any spare soil, put it in a cup with fresh tap water, test it right away, then test it at 12 hours and again at 24 hours, see if there's a nitrate spike.

Id be very suspicious of any soil for parameter spiking.
 
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FJB

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As NoodleCats NoodleCats suggested, the thing to do would be a separate nitrate test of a cup of soil with tap water. While at it, I would also test the nitrate in pure tap water (I would let it degas a while), as sometimes there is a baseline that must be accounted for.
If, as it is very likely, the nitrate reading after 2 days of setting tank s due to the substrate, then you will still need to go through your cycling (fish less preferred), by providing a source of ammonia and expecting to obtain readings changing over time from all 3 components (ammonia, nitrite and nitrate), to only nitrate by the end of the cycle.
In addition, if that soil adds that much nitrate, that may be a problem long term, potentially.....
 
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(Vacation is over- other members will know what this means,)


buz2au buz2au

Depending upon how many plants you have and what kind, nitrate may not be an issue under normal circumstances. When plants consume ammonium, they do not produce any nitrate. Plants can take up ammonium much faster than bacteria can use ammonia.

I would ask what amount of ammonia you are adding for the fishless cycle, and how often. Also when was the most recent dose. On the surface it would appear that your plants are not yet pulling their weight. Since you have 1 ppm of ammonia but less nitrite and way more nitrate, without plants, I would say your fishless cycle is moving along fine. But I cannot say this for sure without knowing how much and how often you are dosing ammonia and what plants you have.

Nitrate test kits are notoriously problematic. There are a few reasons for this. A major one is that with the two reagent solution in the API nitrate kit, the second one is well known for settling out. It is necessary not only to shake it vigorously for the full minute, but one should also bang the bottom of the bottle on a hard surface a time or three along the way. What happens is the reagents precipitate out, sink to the bottom as solids and stick there. You need to get them mixed back into solution.

It would also be more likely for a substrate for plants to leech ammonia not nitrate. However, I would suggest you still do the suggested substrate test above to be shure.
 

buz2au

buz2au
Oct 12, 2005
11
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3
All the base soil went into the substrate at set up so can't do soil only test. All test results on day 2 about the same as day 1 - ph changed from 7.2 (day 1) to 7.0 (day 2) due to co2 injection - will do another 50% WC today (day 3) and see what happens - plants arrive tomorrow (day 4) and will do a 95% WC at planting - have about 10 pots of tissue cultures in the order and don't want to melt them if possible. Baseline test (tap) is ph 7.2, ammonia 0.25ppm, nitrite 0.0ppm, nitrate 5.0ppm KH 3 & GH 5
 

buz2au

buz2au
Oct 12, 2005
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TTA the tank is going to be very heavily planted but has no plants in yet, only using fish food as ammonia source to start cycle, as plants arrive tomorrow I may add some store bought bacteria to speed things along
 

dougall

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Mar 29, 2005
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If it is an aquasoil to grow plants, and there are no plants, I have $5 says that it is the soil leaching nitrate to the water.

Either look at the instructions for it, or provide a link so someone can look instead, but chances are that if it is new you should be following a manufacturers schedule of water changes.
 
Apr 2, 2002
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I have my own way of doing a planted tank and a fishless cycle. I find it works out for the fastest stocking and healthy plants.

1. Determine your aquascaping plan- i.e . decide what is going where in the tank, especially plants.
2. Set up and plant the tank fully.
3. Since most plants come with fertilizer reserves, you should not need to fertilize much initially. CO2 is more important at this stage. The point here is to give the plants time to settle in and to establish roots. I usually want at least 2 weeks for this.
4. After settling the plants in, the only question is how much ammonia can the tank process in 24 hours or less. Bear in mind the plants arrive with some amount of the desired bacteria living on them.
5. To answer the question you need a controlled dose of ammonia. Using food is an uncontrolled and messy way to do a fishless cycle is not recommended. Use either ammonium chloride or ammonia. Dosing must be precise. There are ammonia calculators online to help with dosing.
6. Start by adding 1 ppm of ammonia and test ammonia in 12 hours. if you have an ammonia reading after 12 hours, test again in 24 hours. If there is none after either 12 or 24 hours, repeat the dose with 2 ppm. Retest at 12 and 24 hours. If you test 0 ammonia at either interval, you are good to add a full load of fish. Do not over stock.
7. If after adding the 2 ppm and you hit 24 hours and there is still not 0 ammonia, test again in another 24 hours. Repeat testing until you get 0, then re-add 2 ppm. The goal is for the tank to turn 2 ppm of ammonia to 0 in 24 hours max.

If you are willing to stock more slowly than a full stock all at once, then if you can process 1 ppm in 24 hours you can do roughly a 50% stocking to start. Bear in mind that what determines stocking levels in the mass of the fish. More and or bigger fish make more ammonia. Once that 50% fish load is settlled in and readings are all good, you can add 25% wait a bit and then add the final 25%. testing will tell you when adding is safe.

Doing a full fishless cycle and then adding plants is a slwoer way to do things and it wastes time and effort. The bacteria present in an unplanted tank handles all the ammonia, When plants are present they begin using the ammonia (as ammonium). So there will be less bacteria the more plants one has. However, no planted tank is completely devoid of nitrifying bacteria. On the other hand a tank with no plants can still process a lot of ammonia having only bacteria. Plants allow one to stock sooner and take less time than a plantless fishless cylcle which take 4-6 weeks.
 

fishorama

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...& this is part of why I don't use soil, lol. I know some do & love the results! But the ammonia & nitrate leaching & the dirt storm whenever plants are moved...yeah, not so much...

buz, I did fish food cycling 1 time & it was quite messy. I won't be doing that again...But 1ppm ammonia & small nitrite amount (say 0.5ppm without any fish!!) is OK. As is 40ppm nitrate. You can go ahead with plants, they'll be fine. But before getting fish you need 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 20 or less nitrate.

TTA, nice to see you back! Even though you did keep up the fun music!
 

dougall

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Mar 29, 2005
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...& this is part of why I don't use soil, lol. I know some do & love the results! But the ammonia & nitrate leaching & the dirt storm whenever plants are moved...yeah, not so much...
Try using something like Stratum sometime. Even on a small scale

It leaches little if any ammonia at the beginning (or ever) and I really don't see any sort of dust cloud of uprooting plants and being relatively gentle.

It's not like using, shiver, garden soil or something
 
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