Is 40 nitrates too high for datnoids?

[Hmontoya93]

I have 3 8 inch Datnoids in a 360 gallon with a black Arowana and 7 King Kong parrots. I do around 2-3 water changes a week around 30-40%. I can’t get nitrates below 40, and I have reduced feeding as well. For the long term is to jut better to reduce stocking or will 40 be ok? I don’t feel comfortable increasing the water change percentage I’ve had issues in the past even temperature matching and this is my sweet spot for this tanks no deaths in a long years.
I just got them 3 months ago they are already out of hiding and eating frozen krill and food sticks

 

[tlindsey]

reduce stocking

That would probably work.

 

[ken31cay]

I've never kept Datnoids but with my setups in the past when I've let nitrates build up higher than ~15ppm-20ppm then I've seen a marked decline in the health of the fish. In my current tanks I keep nitrates well under 10ppm and since I've been able to keep these better parameters over the past two years zero fish die or have had health issues.

 

[danotaylor]

A few relevant questions;
Have you checked the expiry date on your test kit?
If you use a master test kit from API are you adequately shaking bottle #2 before use? Minimum 30 seconds vigorous shaking to mix the reagent properly as it's oily & separates when sitting.
Have you checked the nitrate levels on your source water? Surprisingly I discovered my water comes out of the faucet 5 -10ppm nitrate.

 

[jjohnwm]

Honestly, you may have found a "sweet spot" with respect to convenience of water changes and ease of accurate temperature matching, but nitrates at 40ppm ain't no sweet spot. Not sure if you mean that is the reading before or after a water change? Not great either way. And your fish are not shrinking; as they grow the issue will become more and more pronounced.

You might have nitrates in your source water as danotaylor mentioned; you should check to give yourself an idea of how much you can hope to improve the situation with simple water changes. You can try using plants, especially fast-growing terrestrials like pothos, to reduce nitrates, but you'll find that the sheer volume of vegetation required to consume the nitrates produced by that mass of fish is so huge that it's not practical. Maybe you can play around with some high-zoot new-age filtration system that magically consumes nitrates; there's any number of YouTube whiz-kids detailing various methods to do this, and there's even an apparently small number of people who try it and find it works...at least a little...sometimes...

But, yes, the simple answer, and the one that always works, is lighter stocking combined with more/larger water changes.

 

[duanes]

Although I average 100% water changes per per week by doing about 40% every other day, because my islands desal plant regularly breaks down, at times, the repare work sometimes prevents water changes for a couple weeks in a row, my nitrates remain undetectable, because I use a heavily planted sump. Tank is 180 gals, but the sump holds 125 gallons.
I´ll admit I'm surprized nitrate dont fly thru the roof, during water plant shut downs, but then again, plants use nitrates as food, and there are quite a lot of them in the sump.
Its all about matching fish load and their waste, with plant intake.
And I purposly try to use plants that suck up nitrates like a sponge.
Rooted fully aquatic species are fast grwing Valisneria, and water lilies.

Floating plants are fast growing Salvinia, that are harvested every couple days, to export nitrate they suck up.

And emergent trees such as mangroves obviously get tall (soe almost 6 ft above te sump surface


and braches and aerial roots get thick.

I doubt I could keep nitrate even close to this low, without them
I believe if you are going to cram that many large iish, in that size tank, you´re going to need some kind of extra nitrate consuming agent (as jjohm said).
To me the quickest, and most reliable filtration method, is a large, heavily planted sump.

 

[Midwater]

Is 40 nitrates too high for datnoids?

Yes.

 

[Hmontoya93]

Ok I will try to get it down to 10-20 I actually use. Both api and the hana nitrate usually give me exact results I just use both at times to cross check.
I tried this week to do extra water change it’s around 30 now.
Going to try to plant the tank sump if no improvement might have to find a home for the parrots in a couple months

 

[danotaylor]

I would hope the 2 test kits give the same result. But did you test & cross check your source water?