Balanced nitrates

[nfored]

I finally have enough plants so either all the nitrates that are created through filtration are removed or the plants are consuming all the ammonia before the cycle can get to nitrate. Basically my tap water is 20 ppm the tank used to always be 40 ppm and now it's a steady 20ppm. So if I double the plants will they start dying because there won't be enough nutrition in the water? Or will I end up with 0 ppm nitrate? I personally think the plants will die from lack of food

What do you think

 

[Dloks]

Im no expert but as long as theres fish there will be waste, I believe plants will be fine

 

[mcsnapper1]

 

[epond83]

Plants need three things, CO2 nutrients (nitrates mostly but also phosphates and what not) and light. The plants will grow as much as possible given the limiting factor.

If you don't have strong lights then that will probably be the limiting factor, as with a lot of tanks. But yes you could add a few more plants and see where things level out. The fastest growing plants will out compete the slower growing ones when nutrients become low.

 

[nfored]

I have poths that are 7' long, only a couple of the leafs are are actually in the water mostly just the roots, so the lighting is not the limiting factor, the plants are actually less then 5" from the light and run accross the light. I just thought that since the plants right now are consuming all the nitrates that are getting created that adding more would consume more nitrates then is being created and eventually there would be Zero water params and the plants would starve.

 

[mcsnapper1]

Interesting theory, but I think your tank will always produce more nitrates than your plants can use. BTW, how do your pothos leaves that are under water do? I keep mine completely out of the water. Only the roots are submerged.

 

[epond83]

nitrates could become the 'limiting factor' but in that case they will just slow down on growing.

 

[Blub Blub]

In my experience, the lower the nitrates get the smaller, slower growing, and less green the pothos plant gets. You end up with a large root mass and a small plant. My drip system keeps my nitrates at about 15 ppm. My water out of the tap has about 5-10 ppm nitrates. I added the pothos just to see how low I could get the nitrates in my tank. I saw little change in the nitrates, in my opinion there weren't enough to support the plant. I guess I could have dialed back the drip, and let the plant do more of the work, but water is cheaper than electricity for lights to support the plant.

 

[nfored]

My leaves in. water do okay but get covered in nitrates. As far as the drip you have to consider faster filter exhaustion as well if you are using chloramine our carbon filter at higher rates, or faster diluted water conditioner. For me the light is the same as I use to light the tank 2xod t8 so maybe 100 watts or about 12 cents a day or 3.60 a month when i ran drip the chloramine filter was 36.00 every 6 months so the lights are 50% cheaper and that doesn't even count the extra water you have to use on a drip to get the same amount of water change that you would with a standard water change. My tap has 20ppm and I have never seen any of my tanks below 40ppm even when dripping 10% a day.

That said I loved my drip system and think about setting out back up every day.