nitrate mystery????

K = potassium
Fe = iron
PO4 = phosphate
NO3 = nitrate

all essential to plants. NPK are primary macro's which are needed in heavier doses than the micro-nutrients (also known as traces) which include chlorine, copper, boron etc. Also considered macro's are iron, calcium, magnesium and sulfur although these tend to not be targeted as much as NPK because they are present in tap water. The supplemental fertilizers such as Flourish also dose those nutrients as well as the traces if you are in short supply. Plants also need carbon (why Co2 or a substitute like excel benefits plants) as well as hydrogen and oxygen but water takes care of that...

algae strives on excess nutrients but if your plants are able to use them all up for growth they will outcompete the algae. It's all about finding a balance.
 
I don't use snail jello, but an ice cube size seems very big to me. Even if it's all eaten, that'd be a lot of poo. Try cutting back on that, skip a feeding once in a while & change water a bit more often.
Rinse the filter media more often too to remove waste from the tank, that & water changes are the way to remove nitrates.

Pretty tank, BTW
 
what i see you need to lower the feedings just a little. i would focus more on the veggie matter my veggie guys get food once a week and are doing great. maybe twice in the same week once a month to fatten them up, but i add a water change that week also. also you will need probably root tabs and some micros. that should give you a good start. for micros you can use trace elements in a bottle or csm+b.

edit: start your changes slow and gradual until you have the results you are looking for.
 
I'm not going to comment on the feeding. Its extremely hard to say not enough or too much, without actually seeing the feeding happen.
One persons pinch, is anothers' OMG!!!

My 55g gets feed every 4 hrs.
I like the idea of less, more often. Alot of these fish we kept don't have a stomach.
They stay fairly active all day. Instead of laying around waiting on someone to walk up and drop some food in, then get all active for ten minutes. Granted they do learn that when they hear/feel the auto feeder buzz... "Foods comming... right there>>" lol
My balas were the best at that. Didn't matter where in the tank they were. When that feeder started up, they were all facing up, right under it.

Oh yea, the nitrate delima.

Could be a few things.
If your feeding, is my, OMG. Then your doing pretty good with that nitrate lvl. It could be 140, without the plants?

I don't see a whole lot of "fast growers". So this could be as good as it gets. With the exception of the plants getting bigger and using more up.

The only test kits I found(within reason on price) were, Phosphate and Iron.
My Phosphate was high. So I lowered it.
Iron was zero.

So far I've been trying...
Seachem:
Flourish
Flourish Iron
Flourish Potassium
Trace
and some snake oil... "Natural Aquarium Vital" by Marc Weiss

My nitrates were slowly getting lower, so I'm not sure any of this has done anything. But the tank looks furly nice. And even better at 4 ft away. lol

In general it sounds like your tank is doing good.
Its hard to mess with something that only appears cracked under a microscope. ;)

 
A lot of what I'm going to say is a reiteration of what others have said, so I apologize for that. End value of nitrates is going to be a pretty complicated formula. First you have nitrates in, as others have stated the food that is consumed is still a future source of nitrates, so heavier feeding will produce a higher level of nitrates. The consumption of nitrates is going to be based on the amount of plants and their growth rate. The limiting factor (whatever that is, it could be CO2, light, phosphate, traces, or potassium) will determine growth rate. Obviously in this case nitrate isn't a limiting factor. To simplify things lets say plants need to "eat" 2 nitrates for every unit of light energy. So you provide 5 units of light energy, this means the plants eat 10 units of nitrates, but you add 15 units of nitrate. As time goes on the amount of excess nitrates in the system will build up. Depending on your personal theory on planted tank maintenance, this may or may not be a problem. If you believe algae growth benefits from excess nutrients, you may see this as a problem. If you are a devotee of Tom Barr (PlantBrain) and EI, your not going to see this as a problem (except potentially fish health, though 40 is probably safe). If this tank has been set up for a long period of time it would seem to suggest Tom's theories are more accurate then the "balanced" approach. And like many of the others, if you are happy with your tank, I wouldn't suggest wholesale changes excluding potentially cutting back on feeding a little.

All that said, there is of course the possibility that your nitrate test kit is just wrong. Have you ever calibrated it with known test solutions? Nitrate test kits, IME, are not the most reliable of test kits.

Hope this helps
 
Plants in low tech tanks grow very little in a short period of time, and consume very little nitrate since they don't need it. In a low tech planted tank, the plant growth is so different when compared to a high tech planted tank where some plants grow by inches and feet every week. A low tech planted tank might be mature and fully filled in after 9 months - 1 year. A high tech planted tank will get there in a month! LOL! You continue to feed and your fish continue to excreet ammonia non-stop which is converted to nitrate at a faster rate than low tech plants can consume them, so the nitrate level will continue to build.
 
Hmm... beautiful plants, healthy fish and snails, snails are breeding, no algae. Nitrates are climbing weekly but not out of spec.

Advise - Quit complaining and enjoy a good thing.

Changing anything at this point is just asking for problems. What you need is a comfy chair, a place to put your feet up, and a alcoholic beverage in your hand. While your at it give yourself a pat on the back.
 
i suppose the nitrate level is due to a lil extra food, but that is my way of feeding and my fish are very active all throughout the day and are very healthy and my snail babies are developing quickly for my sale/trade purposes, so i don't think i'm going to change the feeding schedule much, at least not until i've got all the snails out the door. and i have a lot of babies growing up! lol.


pinkertd, i have really good growth even without anything added as far as ferts or co2, so perhaps my plants are getting all they need just from poop, light, and water changes. the vals, bacopa, wisteria, and both swords show new growth on a weekly basis, some show daily growth. the crypts shoot out a new stem on nearly all the plants at least weekly.

to give you an idea of growth, i've had this tank set up since only March. here is when i first set it up (take a look at the sword on the left and stargrass on the right, both plants are in the same spot now), and the photo in the first post in this thread is within the last couple days.

1-0121.jpg

as for cleaning the filters more often, when i do clean the AC 110 hob about once or twice a month it barely even looks like it needs it, the sponge is not clogged at all and the biomax rarely has any particulate stuck to it. and the AC is my main filter on this tank. so do you all think filter maintenance still needs increased?

i have read and experienced (through a lil experiment i did on my cichlid tank) that carbon in the filter will help reduce nitrate levels. i have also read that carbon in a planted tank can block the uptake of nutrients to plants. is this true about carbon and nutrients?

1-0121.jpg
 
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THE V said:
Hmm... beautiful plants, healthy fish and snails, snails are breeding, no algae. Nitrates are climbing weekly but not out of spec.

Advise - Quit complaining and enjoy a good thing.

Changing anything at this point is just asking for problems. What you need is a comfy chair, a place to put your feet up, and a alcoholic beverage in your hand. While your at it give yourself a pat on the back.
Click to expand...

The V, i am not complaining, merely wondering why my nitrates are at the levels they are at in a tank with that many plants, as this is contrary to what i have read and researched.

i do spend a lot of time just enjoying and watching the tank, minus the alcoholic beverage, lol. I am very impressed with my noob self on the success of this tank, i was just wondering about certain parameters.
 
On here the thread for cycling a tank suggest keeping your Nitrates at 40ppm or lower. You should be fine. I honestly dont see the problem. I know how you are bout your finkids but they are fine in there. I wouldnt worry so much BFM.
 
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