Plants to lower nitrates?

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ccp2007

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Apr 29, 2014
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united states
Ok y'all, this is a 2 part question concerning plants.

Part 1: I recently bought an "aquatic combo" and bamboo from petco for my aquariums. The "aquatic combo" consists of: Dracaena, Spathiphyllum, Ophiopogon, Trichomanes and Syngonium. I have found conflicting results when researching these plants. Some saying they are aquarium plants and some saying they're not. Anyone here have success or bad experience with these in their aquarium?

Part 2: My husband is having nitrate issues in his 75. They are consistently remaining high after a week of daily wc, gravel vacuums, decor and filter cleaning. We even went to the extent of removing half the gravel and washing it under hot water and doing a bleach bath on the gravel. Today, the nitrates are still at 80ppm. We are not over feeding. We feed 2 small portions a day. Both feedings we only drop a few pellets at a time and wait for those to be eaten before dropping in more. So, question is, what's the best plants to help with nitrates? We have tried everything except using chemicals and would like to keep it that way if possible.

Also, we have a few extra hob filters, would it be beneficial to make one into a veggie filter? If so, how do you do it? Please be descriptive as I am a plant moron lol


Happily married Mommy of 3 babies, 2 fur babies and 15 gilled babies
 
ccp2007 said:
Also, we have a few extra hob filters, would it be beneficial to make one into a veggie filter? If so, how do you do it? Please be descriptive
Click to expand...
Using an hob for plants works well. Just plug it in, get some peace lilies or pothos, rinse all the dirt from the roots, stick the roots in the area where the media goes, make sure the rest is above the water level and you should be good to go.
 
Got pothos today. Will most definitely do that tomorrow :)

Thank you for answering my question

Happily married Mommy of 3 babies, 2 fur babies and 15 gilled babies
 
ccp2007 said:
Ok y'all, this is a 2 part question concerning plants.

Part 1: I recently bought an "aquatic combo" and bamboo from petco for my aquariums. The "aquatic combo" consists of: Dracaena, Spathiphyllum, Ophiopogon, Trichomanes and Syngonium. I have found conflicting results when researching these plants. Some saying they are aquarium plants and some saying they're not. Anyone here have success or bad experience with these in their aquarium?

Part 2: My husband is having nitrate issues in his 75. They are consistently remaining high after a week of daily wc, gravel vacuums, decor and filter cleaning. We even went to the extent of removing half the gravel and washing it under hot water and doing a bleach bath on the gravel. Today, the nitrates are still at 80ppm. We are not over feeding. We feed 2 small portions a day. Both feedings we only drop a few pellets at a time and wait for those to be eaten before dropping in more. So, question is, what's the best plants to help with nitrates? We have tried everything except using chemicals and would like to keep it that way if possible.

Also, we have a few extra hob filters, would it be beneficial to make one into a veggie filter? If so, how do you do it? Please be descriptive as I am a plant moron lol


Happily married Mommy of 3 babies, 2 fur babies and 15 gilled babies
Click to expand...

1: Those are not aquatic, plant them in HOB filters and they should be fine.

2: I don't think doing a bleach bath on the substrate is a good idea since that would kill any BBA in the substrate...which would only further the problem. What fish does he have in the tank as well and how often is he doing water changes, and what is he using as a filter? My favorite "filter" plant is dwarf water lettuce and duckweed, since that stuff will grow basically endlessly and absorb nutrients like no one's business.
 
What are the inhabitants and their size?

You may need to change more water. And hope your supply is not carrying much nitrate.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using MonsterAquariaNetwork App
 
He has a 6" Jack Dempsey, 4" acei, 2 5" Bichirs, 1 2"Ruby red peacock, 1 2" Ruby Crystal peacock, 1 3" Ruben red peacock, 2 3" jewels (they're going in a 30 this weekend) and 6-7" common pleco.

He's running an Aqueon for up to 75 gallons and 2 50 gallon aqua clears. One of the aqua clears is just a bio filter with biomax sponge and ceramic rings, the other 2 have Ammo carb and filter pads that are made for them.

As far as bleach bathing his gravel, I did half of it. I'm not too worried about destroying too much BB because he has a filter just for bio. His ammonia and nitrites are still at 0. It's just his nitrates that are acting crazy out of no where.

We must be doing something wrong...although we treat the 55 & 30 the same and nitrates are 5ppm on the 30 and 10ppm on the 55.


Happily married Mommy of 3 babies, 2 fur babies and 15 gilled babies
 
in theory , the possibilities for increased nitrates can be overfeeding , high nitrate content of tap water , undiscovered dead fish ,I dont think iots a filter problem as filter problem would cause high ammonia or nitrite , nitrates are the lowest breakdown product in the nitrogen cycle .
maybe the problem can be due to lack of algae ( insufficient lightning ? , absence of algae spore in water supply ? ) or lack of nitrate to nitrogen converting bacteria .
 
My guess for high nitrates is the bioload.

May need to increase water change frequency.

Did you check your filters for dead fish/food/anything chunky that could be rotting?

Sent from my SCH-I535 using MonsterAquariaNetwork App
 
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