what ways of lowering nitrate
- Thread starter Richard203
- Start date
Also remember to wash your filters out in old tank water occasionally, if you don't they can turn into nitrate factory's.
I find it very surprising that a single 6" arowana is bringing you to 40ppm of nitrate each week in a 125 gallon, even if you do feed on the heavy side. I have packed the crap out of 125's with large cichlids and still hovered around 20ppm with only once a week water changes. Thinking there might be another factor here. What is your nitrate after you perform the water change? Maybe the nitrate is never going low enough to stay down and you are getting "creep" from the previous weeks. Also, how long has tank been set up, and how often do you clean out the filters?
Hello; Reduced feeding or skipping a day or two each week with the current feeding will not starve the fish.
One of the ways I figured out that I was overfeeding many decades ago was going away for a few days. I knew the fish would be fine without food for a few days but was often pleased about how much better my tanks looked after three or four days with no feeding. Took a while but I eventually learned to feed less.
How much to feed? You cannot go by a fish's appetite. Most fish will eat like pigs even if they have already had too much. A well fed fish will still appear to beg for food. I do not keep the kind of fish you have so cannot say from experience.
Some feed their fish a lot because they want to grow them out as big as possible as soon as possible. So it depends on our goals.
I clean my filter every other month for each filter, for example I clean the 110 this month next month is fx6. I don't wanna clean all of the filter at once and no bacteria to cycle the tank. I have the tank for 2 yrs now. yesterday I just changed water and added 36 gal of water and the tank water ph 6.4 to 7.4ph. I'll let u guys know whats the nitrate reading after tomorrow since I use prime on my water have to wait couple days. another question is is santa monica algea scrubber good for it price? or I can find other brand that is lower and do the same thing?
yeah seems weird to me too. I have a 7" GT in a 75g and I feed 2 times a day and do 1 massive water change a week and barely get 5ppm nitrates.
This is from a chemistry standpoint:
Assume 2 identical tanks with identical numbers and size of fish:
Tank 1: fish are fed 3% net body weight with 35% protein food.
Tank 2: fish are fed 13.5% net body weight with 84% protein food.
Tank 2 will have 11x as much nitrates as tank 1. If it's 27% net body weight in tank 2, it will have 22x as much.
So without knowing the exact amount and type of food being fed, it's difficult to say, but over feeding with super high protein food will generally produce super high amounts of nitrates compared to feeding moderately (assuming 3% of body weight) with typical pellets or flakes (assuming 35% protein.)
Assume 2 identical tanks with identical numbers and size of fish:
Tank 1: fish are fed 3% net body weight with 35% protein food.
Tank 2: fish are fed 13.5% net body weight with 84% protein food.
Tank 2 will have 11x as much nitrates as tank 1. If it's 27% net body weight in tank 2, it will have 22x as much.
So without knowing the exact amount and type of food being fed, it's difficult to say, but over feeding with super high protein food will generally produce super high amounts of nitrates compared to feeding moderately (assuming 3% of body weight) with typical pellets or flakes (assuming 35% protein.)
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Have you tried adding some probiotics to your tank water? May help with any excess food. And generally helps the nitrogen cycle.
Something seems off to me too. My 180 had 3 aros minimum 12 inches and 10+ bichirs at 7-18 inches and a ton of Vieja running 2 canister filters and my nitrates were between 10-20ppm with wc once or twice a week. Feeding consisted of 1.5 solo cups full of shrimp and a handful of pellets each night. Only difference Is that i clean one Filter every week vs every month.
Do u have anything else in the tank? Plants, snails, feeders etc?
Do u have anything else in the tank? Plants, snails, feeders etc?
