Plants don't take that long to start sucking nitrates. If anything an algae farm would take longer to get established. Honestly though without any lights I don't know how effective plants will be. In a planted aquarium I've witnessed a ton of nitrate removal, but those were in ideal conditions and they were growing quickly. without any light even low light plants will not grow much. I have an axolotl tank with less than 1 wpg with water wisteria and cabomba, and the plants are barely growing. They stay alive, and still use a decent amount of nitrate(one salamander, ton of plants), but not nearly as well as they would if they had a decent amount of light, and co2/ferts. Just to recommend a few plants if your gonna give it a go, water wisteria and cabomba are my favorite two filter plants, anacharis, hornwort, are some other good ones. Basically just find plants that grow like crazy, and they should do well.
High nitrates
- Thread starter shua71
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Hmm doesn't seem like the best idea anymore. Especially since I just realized that my silver dollars would eat the plants. I also feel that the route of a RODI unit would be too inefficient since the water is filtered way too slowly. Is there any chemical that I could add like a water conditioner that would instantly kill the nitrates every time I do a change?
I'd start thinking about getting a sump put in for either a refugium, or as prober suggested an algae turf scrubber.
You might do a big water change with some bottled drinking water to get the nitrates down to less than lethal range. That would buy you some time. You could find a water source from a nearby town that might be better but there again it sucks to haul water.
RO units are not that expensive. You can find small ones for around $100 and you might score one on craigslist for cheaper. Get a rubbermaid trashcan and it will fill it in less than a day.
I realized when I posted that an algae scrubber would take time to establish but I believe that it would start reducing your nitrates very quickly and would probably be effective in a couple weeks but by the time you buy a pump and a tub/sump, misc. plumbing parts etc. it would probably be as much money as an RO unit that you could just hook up to a sink.
The reason I say plants are not the answer is that I have a high light plant tank with ferts and co2 heavily planted with fast growing plants and it still takes most of the week to reduce nitrates from 40 to 10 with a light bioload. You could throw some duckweed in there and you don't need to even plant it but you will never get it out of the tank. It takes over and even when you think you have removed it all it is back with a big ball in a couple weeks. It is effective at reducing nitrates though.
I think for now I would plan on an emergency bottled water change. 50% change will reduce your nitrates to a level the fish will live with for a few days but by the end of the week you will need a better answer. Even at $.30 a gallon it adds up pretty fast.
Good luck and post what you do to correct it. Your experience can help us all.
RO units are not that expensive. You can find small ones for around $100 and you might score one on craigslist for cheaper. Get a rubbermaid trashcan and it will fill it in less than a day.
I realized when I posted that an algae scrubber would take time to establish but I believe that it would start reducing your nitrates very quickly and would probably be effective in a couple weeks but by the time you buy a pump and a tub/sump, misc. plumbing parts etc. it would probably be as much money as an RO unit that you could just hook up to a sink.
The reason I say plants are not the answer is that I have a high light plant tank with ferts and co2 heavily planted with fast growing plants and it still takes most of the week to reduce nitrates from 40 to 10 with a light bioload. You could throw some duckweed in there and you don't need to even plant it but you will never get it out of the tank. It takes over and even when you think you have removed it all it is back with a big ball in a couple weeks. It is effective at reducing nitrates though.
I think for now I would plan on an emergency bottled water change. 50% change will reduce your nitrates to a level the fish will live with for a few days but by the end of the week you will need a better answer. Even at $.30 a gallon it adds up pretty fast.
Good luck and post what you do to correct it. Your experience can help us all.
I agree, a properly installed algae turf scrubber would probably be more effective than planting your tank. I will say I attempted to install one in our college fish tanks with limited funding, and we ran into a few problems that ended up in us giving up on the idea(sump wasn't built with an algae scrubber in mind, and it was really hard to install light bulbs in the sump without a good chance that they would get wet. Also water evaporated and got in the bulbs and caused them to stop working within a few days.)
I'm new here but can offer some sympathy and input in this topic. I too suffer from high nitrate tap water. I have tried quite a few methods/products in an attempt to keep my tank levels down.
1. Tetra easy balance with very little difference noticed
2. JBL NitraEX, mesh bags put into your filter and recharged in salt water (this was the 2nd best at reducing the tank level but after a day or 2 had become ineffective and needed recharging which also took a couple of days. The information stated with each recharge the product became less effective)
3. Plants, which didnt have a chance to prove their worth in my cichlid tank as they got destroyed or eaten within days.
4. Buying RO water from a shop which without containers and a strong arm and decent transport is a pain in the neck
5. Lastly the best method both for result and ease I have tried is Kordon Amquel+. I'm not a big fan of adding chemicals have found this product not only initially reduced the level of the tanks nitrate I also add it to my tap water during changes along with its sister product NovAqua+.
I did have a hard time sourcing some in the UK but it is freely available on the internet if you cant find a stockist locally.
Hope my experiences helped in some way and good luck with your problem.
1. Tetra easy balance with very little difference noticed
2. JBL NitraEX, mesh bags put into your filter and recharged in salt water (this was the 2nd best at reducing the tank level but after a day or 2 had become ineffective and needed recharging which also took a couple of days. The information stated with each recharge the product became less effective)
3. Plants, which didnt have a chance to prove their worth in my cichlid tank as they got destroyed or eaten within days.
4. Buying RO water from a shop which without containers and a strong arm and decent transport is a pain in the neck
5. Lastly the best method both for result and ease I have tried is Kordon Amquel+. I'm not a big fan of adding chemicals have found this product not only initially reduced the level of the tanks nitrate I also add it to my tap water during changes along with its sister product NovAqua+.
I did have a hard time sourcing some in the UK but it is freely available on the internet if you cant find a stockist locally.
Hope my experiences helped in some way and good luck with your problem.
I'm plagued by high nitrates as well and decided to give pothos a shot. It has been a few weeks now and I'm noticing a drop in nitrates along with some super root growth.
Check this thread:
http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=165929
Check this thread:
http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=165929
IrnGynt;4887799; said:I'm plagued by high nitrates as well and decided to give pothos a shot. It has been a few weeks now and I'm noticing a drop in nitrates along with some super root growth.
Check this thread:
http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=165929
How much of a drop did you experience? Mine comes out of the tap at over 40
ford130;4887224; said:I'm new here but can offer some sympathy and input in this topic. I too suffer from high nitrate tap water. I have tried quite a few methods/products in an attempt to keep my tank levels down.
1. Tetra easy balance with very little difference noticed
2. JBL NitraEX, mesh bags put into your filter and recharged in salt water (this was the 2nd best at reducing the tank level but after a day or 2 had become ineffective and needed recharging which also took a couple of days. The information stated with each recharge the product became less effective)
3. Plants, which didnt have a chance to prove their worth in my cichlid tank as they got destroyed or eaten within days.
4. Buying RO water from a shop which without containers and a strong arm and decent transport is a pain in the neck
5. Lastly the best method both for result and ease I have tried is Kordon Amquel+. I'm not a big fan of adding chemicals have found this product not only initially reduced the level of the tanks nitrate I also add it to my tap water during changes along with its sister product NovAqua+.
I did have a hard time sourcing some in the UK but it is freely available on the internet if you cant find a stockist locally.
Hope my experiences helped in some way and good luck with your problem.
Whats the difference between this Amquel+ product compared to prime? Also how much nitrates can it remove instantly? If this worked i'd be one happy camper haha
I'm not entirely sure if this was the amquels fault, but I bought some amquel not knowing it had ammonia detoxifier built in, and once I started using it all my tanks became uncycled. I don't really have any proof that it was the amquel, as I've heard that it converts the ammonia, rather than lock it, but it's the only new things I've added to all my tanks, and they are all uncycled.
carsona246;4889088; said:I'm not entirely sure if this was the amquels fault, but I bought some amquel not knowing it had ammonia detoxifier built in, and once I started using it all my tanks became uncycled. I don't really have any proof that it was the amquel, as I've heard that it converts the ammonia, rather than lock it, but it's the only new things I've added to all my tanks, and they are all uncycled.
Yeah I don't think i'm going to take that route. I did research and I really don't see any difference between it and prime (which i already use). I think i'm gonna go with a RO system. Gonna find one that I can attach to the sink and fill up a barrel of clean water when I wanna do water changes
