The easiest way to get perfect nitrate reading

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
jcardona1;3701155; said:
a full blown planted tank is very different than a tank with large predatory fish, apples to oranges.
Click to expand...

correct, they are different! however, there are ways of incorporating plants in the ''systems'' of large predatory tanks.
 
My nitrate reading straight out of the tap is 40 to 50 :WHOA:.I feed about 4 to 6 large market prawns daily and a few pellets and algae wafers for my flagtails.I never really feed more than my fish will eat within 5 minutes.I'm running a 100 gallon sump with 1 quietone 9000 and 1 quietone 6000(about 4,000 gph).My sump is loaded to the top with ceramic rings and pond matrix.On the side where the pumps put water back in my tank I also have about 8 big bags full of ceramic rings and I also have a huge air pump meant for ponds,it has 12 outlets for air.I have one outlet running in my sump to promote extra healthy bacteria.and 2 outlets running in my tank.The top of my water makes huge waves.My fish are very healthy and active,i'm just hoping that the nitrate will not effect any of my fish.I've always heard that nitrate is not harmful to your fish,I was just wondering if that is true or not.
 
sounds like you got more bio media than you will ever use, which is a good thing if you plan to expand your fish load :)

nitrate is harmful, only thing is that fish can tolerate much higher levels of nitrate as opposed to ammonia/nitrite where even a slight reading can cause health problems for fish.

i think your solution is an algae scrubber or perhaps a constant water change drip system. have you looked into a reverse osmosis unit? dont know too much about these but im sure it will help
 
frontosafanatic;3701171; said:
My nitrate reading straight out of the tap is 40 to 50 :WHOA:.I feed about 4 to 6 large market prawns daily and a few pellets and algae wafers for my flagtails.I never really feed more than my fish will eat within 5 minutes.I'm running a 100 gallon sump with 1 quietone 9000 and 1 quietone 6000(about 4,000 gph).My sump is loaded to the top with ceramic rings and pond matrix.On the side where the pumps put water back in my tank I also have about 8 big bags full of ceramic rings and I also have a huge air pump meant for ponds,it has 12 outlets for air.I have one outlet running in my sump to promote extra healthy bacteria.and 2 outlets running in my tank.The top of my water makes huge waves.My fish are very healthy and active,i'm just hoping that the nitrate will not effect any of my fish.I've always heard that nitrate is not harmful to your fish,I was just wondering if that is true or not.
Click to expand...


nitrates are harmless at low levels. people tend to differ from what they consider to be low. it would also depend on what fish u keep.

anyways, i would try a hydroponic filtration system like i mentioned in post #21. maybe do a search, i remember people discussing this in the past.
 
Yea I know Jose,I have way more bio media than needed but it's always better to be safe than sorry.Plus you should know me pretty good by now.I am gonna add more fish to the tank.Probably this week:naughty:,honestly I just put this thread up to see what everyones response is to nitrate.(deadly or not)for the most part it's seeming like nitrate isn't very dangerous.I'm just gonna watch the fish and if I start running into problems i'll build an algae scrubber.For now I think I might just boost my waterchanges to twice a week.Thanks everyone for your input and suggestions,there's nothing worst than creating a thread and getting no responses.
 
yeah in fact this thread has gotten me more interested in building the algae scrubber, starting to get more serious about it. maybe in the next couple weeks ill start working on it.

im hoping that zero (or close to) nitrates will give the pbass even more color :naughty: afterall, im sure the nitrate readings in the wild are almost non existent. i dont check nitrates either, but the time i did a few weeks ago they were pretty high, 80+ ppm. and i do 60-70% water changes every week and i still cant keep them low
 
That's a good point,they probably don't have nitrates in the wild with all those plants in the water,and maybe that does help there color.You interested in 2 pellet trained keberi:naughty:
 
Yup, jcardona1 is exactly right in recommending a scrubber. A properly built and maintained scrubber will keep your nitrates and ammonia levels from near zero to zero.

I have had mine running for 4 months now, and it is working better than I ever thought it would.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
MonsterFishKeepers.com
Top Bottom