Nitrate Help?

ben_manzella

ben_manzella

Ben_M
Jan 16, 2005
53
0
0
57
Chicago
In a planted tank can/will the plants lower the nitrate level? I know there are several parameters such as plant to fish ratio and so on. I will try to give you my paramets as best as I can.
90 Gallon PH (CO2 Induced) 7.0 KH 7 With 260 watts of Lighting and flourite substrate.
Nitrate levels 40 PPM. (I am planning a water change as soon as I can get 30 gallons of RO water brewed up) this is also the reason for my Nitrate question. I have dosed with flourish, trace, potassium, and phosphorous, I screwed up my test on nitrates so I also added those, I know, but there is no use in yelling or ripping me what I need is help with my current problem. Will I be Ok until monday with nitrates at 40 PPM? Will the plants consume some of the nitrates? It is pretty well planted.
 
Ben,

I'll preface this by first saying I'm a relative newbie. That being said, I don't think you have any immediate risks to your tank with nitrates at 40. I have a 55 gal. moderately planted with anubias, crypts, water wisteria, java ferns, and ludwigia repens. Unfortunately, the water in my area comes out of the tap at 40 ppm or higher with nitrates. I've found that my nitrate parameters are static between PWC's (40-60 ppm) so I know my plants are eating some nitrates. I also don't add any supplemental CO2 and I haven't use Flourish yet, but I'm going to start using Flourish to boost grow.

Plants prefer ammonia and nitrites before nitrates but will use up some nitrates....they're just not usually first in line. Sounds like you will be just fine while you wait to add some RO water. I wouldn't be concerned.
 
Ok thanks. I will be frugal with their food for the next couple of days just to be safe.
 
RTR said:
IMHO 40 ppm nitrate is astronomic for a planted tank. Do partials to get it down.
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RTR,

Any words of wisdom for somebody who lives with tap water that starts at 40ppm at a minimum? When my planted tank gets a little more established I hope to see the nitrates decrease slightly btween PWC. Based on my tap water parmameters I'm adding nitrates to my tank with every PWC.

Thanks!
 
Rebgen said:
Ben,

Plants prefer ammonia and nitrites before nitrates but will use up some nitrates....they're just not usually first in line. Sounds like you will be just fine while you wait to add some RO water. I wouldn't be concerned.
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I have been doing some research that verifies plants prefer amonia to nitrates and nitrites. That being said I have a wet dry filter with bioballs. I wonder if removing those bioballs gradually so that the plants would not have to compete with the bacteria for amonia would be benificial for the plants. I could then get to a point where I could use my wet dry as a sump.
 
That is a terrific question. It's also beyond my level of experience as far as an answer goes, so I'll be interested in what replies come in. Intuitively, I'd venture to guess that you're right. As long as you have the thriving plants that you obviously have in your tank it seems as if they would pick up any excess ammonia being produced fairly quickly.

Currently I'm not using supplemental CO2 and don't plan to due to my fondness for bio-wheels. I am planning to start using Flourish Excel to provide some more available carbon and see what happens.
 
Nitrification bacteria do not compete with plants for available ammonia. The plants out-do them easily. Comments to the contrary are IMHO another aquarium myth, propagated I assume by folks who have never tested the theory. Itsound resonable, so it gets spread around. I am by nature and training a scientist. I accept nothing until I have tested it.

I have a lot of tanks, many planted, still multiple unplanted. Most are bio-only canister filtered. I either precondition these (fishless) on empty tanks while allowing the plants to establish in the "new" setup, or steal a mature one from another tank whose inhabitants are being traded off. I can take either of those filters and run it on a newly fully stocked tank without issues, even if the tank is FO. I cannot steal from a healthy heavily planted tank without reading ammonia and/or nitrite in the "new" setup. So I tested - take a mature filter and ammonia-challenge it it on a unoccupied tank. The results are what you would expect - no detectable ammonia or nitrite. Repeat the test using a "mature" biofilter from a planted tank. The results are detectable ammonia and or nitrite. It does not take long for these filters to catch up (faster than fishless, only a few days), but their bacterial colonies are small compared to FO. Repeat both both until you are confident with the results. Plants out-compete bacteria. The bacteria get enough not to starve out (likely during the dark cycle, but I did not control for that), but they are the backup bench warmers, the plants are the players.

Per Tom Barr, nothing uses nitite. It is too toxic to be membrane transported and moved around inside the cell. Those processes which involve nitrite generation internally (such as getting the N out of nitrate) are enzyme bound to render the nitrite harmless as it is further reduced.

If it were my water I would either go RO, or set up more aging vessels with emerse veggie filters to eat the nitrate before I used the water. It is a tossup which I would do. I would definitely test the plant extraction first, but I don't know what the trace element situation would be afterward - likely much the same as RO, but some non-plant-used materials definitely still in the water. I hate wasting all that water for RO.
 
I have a question here. Since part of this problem is the tap water and nitrates, and the other part of this problem is high nitrates couldn't this be treated by Zeolite or something similar to get the nitrates at least down to begin with?
I know that might not be the best solution in the long run, especially if you could easily do a water change, but wouldn't that do the trick in the short run, and wouldn't that help if you had a nitrate problem out of the tap?

(On a side note a tank of Vals is said to be a good filter. Aged water and vals would have been the Innes way.)
 
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