mine was running at around 160 for a year... i was doing an experiment about "Old-Tank-Syndrome" and in the year i didnt do a water change or clean the tank at all... all my fish (small community) survived... i even added other store bought fish and added them straight into the tank with no noticable problems. But thats over now as i felt bad for the fish and that tank is usually sitting between 10-20 with live plants and every other day 25% water changes. (its also way overstocked)
How high are your nitrates
- Thread starter Danger_Chicken
- Start date
I'm with you, Joey. I've got 5 Oscars and I'd be down to NO Oscars if I let their nitrates get as high as that website says! That's ludicrous. Nitrates that high are dangerous. My Oscars get 2 big water changes a week on their understocked tanks, nitrates hit 5 ppm the day of their water change. My other 18 tanks hit 7-8 ppm before their weekly water change. Until I ever joined forums I didn't realize so many people let their nitrates get so high. We choose our battles and water quality is mine.
Rarely do I test for nitrates in my tanks but I have yet to see a level over 20. Lots of good maintenance and WC's. I also use a UGF in one of my tanks without any problems, the tank has been running for several yrs.
My tanks always tend to be around 50ppm, baring i mind they are overstocked and have rays in, but i overfilter by loads but of late my trop pond has been 250ppm + ! Ive brought it down though.
Plants use VERY little nitrate, you'd need a jungle of plants before you could say your plants keep them at trace levels, that's alot of rubbish i'm afraid. Literally 3/4 of the tank would need to be plants and even at that, no space of water between the leaves.
steverothery;2259334; said:
Very true. I've tried telling people that before and thought I was going to be kicked to the door. You'd have to pack the tank so full of plants you wouldn't have room for fish. On another websight I read a thread where a guy did an experiment to prove plants don't make a dent in nitrates. The end result basically was that you'd have to jam-pack the tank full of plants to get even a 1 ppm difference weekly in nitrate readings.
steverothery;2259334; said:
You're right. I forgot that you're vast compendium of aquatic knowledge can transcend the internet and test my water.
Since you're such a freakin genius you know that you meant to say "aquatic plants will consume more available forms of nitrogen and ammonia products before nitrates".
I am not attacking your knowledge, only your knowledge of my tanks and my experience. I never said anything about what types or to what extent of plants I have, so you have nothing to ground your attacks on. I have kept tanks as you have described that did nothing for water quality, and I have done tanks that are literally half of what you describe that are nitrate eating machines. Before you make a blanket statement you should consider the types of plants and how fast they grow mixed in with how efficiently they utilize their available nutrients through photosynthesis.
oh no.... maybe I'm not a moron?
