Nitrates

[papawoody]

my nitrate is at least 20 from the tap . it's hard to tell with those shades of red looking so close .... anyways , my goal is to keep it as low as i can , but 10 ? no way ... however , i can get them to about 0 in my pond , which is understocked with fish and overstocked with plants ... (except in winter , when the plants die out )

 

[knicks791]

Last time the tap came out with 0 nitrates. I will keep them down as low as possible with water changes and a lot of plants. If the water come out with nitrates, I am going to get a RO system. All for my scar face.

 

[Mr Pleco]

Last time the tap came out with 0 nitrates. I will keep them down as low as possible with water changes and a lot of plants. If the water come out with nitrates, I am going to get a RO system. All for my scar face.

Plants with Oscars? HITH sensetive fish try this stuff it works, great :

Instant Ocean Natural nitrate remover.. 9.59 ..treats 500 gallons at Dr fosters and smith

80 ppm + down to zero in 3 days

 

[lukester825]

build some sort of algae scrubber, excellent at keeping nitrates down, probably cheaper than a reverse osmosis system too, and DIY.

http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=180385&highlight=algae+scrubber

http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=294300&highlight=algae+scrubber

 

[Larz]

I must be one lazy SOB, cause I've never even owned a Nitrate test kit. If the fish look and act healhty and you're doing regular water changes it should never be a problem.

 

[knifegill]

But it has become one.

My Oscar did the same thing. I ended up restricting his diet to one small meal per day with one fasting day. So far so good. The nitrates don't pass 20 in the 80g tank he's in before W/C day. I'm also about to put him in a 125g with nothing but a green sunfish and an L200 pleco. That should fix his wagon

 

[knicks791]

The alge scrubber is expensive and doubt I need a RO. I am thinking of get big amazon swords like 20" and a java moss wall.

Larz, what kind of fish do you have. Nitrates are quite important.

Knifegill, has your oscar eatten any of its friends due to hunger?

 

[cchhcc]

My alpha-male Blue Dolphin cichlid had HITH disease once. It occurred when I added carbon to the tank for the first time. I removed the carbon and added cichlid essential (after doing 40% water change). The HITH went away almost immediately!!! I'm never using carbon again!

So, if you have carbon on your tank, try removing it and see what happens!

In spite of what some of the older references may show, carbon does not on its own cause HITH. What CAN occur, though, is carbon may release many of the toxins and organics it has previously absorbed over time back into the system. It's those waste byproducts, not the carbon, that is causing environmentally caused HITH.

So, Alex is right. Try removing carbon from your tank, especially if it is old or if it faces a heavy waste load.

Carbon that is replaced regularly is perfectly safe. However, it is also perfectly unnecessary unless you need to remove medication, color, etc.

 

[poly-nomial]

My Nitrates are always below 10. I also do daily water changes of 2g on my 55g. So it helps a lot.

 

[LD50]

The alge scrubber is expensive and doubt I need a RO. I am thinking of get big amazon swords like 20" and a java moss wall.

Larz, what kind of fish do you have. Nitrates are quite important.

Knifegill, has your oscar eatten any of its friends due to hunger?

Unless you have a sizeable ammount of plants they wont be able to keep up with an oscars NO3 production esp considering the plants that you listed are heavy root feeders, they draw their nutrients from the substrate far more than the water itself. The moss will work but its not very fast growing, so it wont use up the NO3 very fast. Fast growing, floating/stalky plants are the best for nutrient export but odds are your oscar will decimate them. Thus the algae scrubber, you can build one for pretty cheap, 30 bucks worth of stuff at home depot/hobby lobby and a pump wich is going to be your most expensive item. How often do you service your AC and FX5? If you leave waste decaying inside your filters they will continue to pump out NO3 no matter how many WC's you do. With my oscar I did a 50% WC once a week and I squeezed out all the mech media from my FX5 in a bucket of old tank water removeing the waste without harming the BB colony and my NO3 stayed at about 10ppm with regular feeding.