nitrates

[lightning]

i cannot get my nitrates down, my tank has been established since december, i have a 55 gal with 14 4" SA cichlids 1 meduim pleco and a 4' catfish thing, 65 lbs holey rock a topfin 60 and an empror 400 filter with 2 bio wheels, i do 10 gal water changes every 4 days, ph 7.6 ,amonia 0, hardness 80,nitrite 0, nitrate 100 ...
they are given spirulina flakes mixed with tetramin flakes 1 time a day with fresh zuccini or lettuce about every other day and frozen brine shrimp once a week, all flake food is eatten in 1-2 minutes, vegetables last about a day -
how do i get the nitrates down ?

 

[Aquaman]

Try this water-change calculator, Lightening:

http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/pages/water_change_calculator.php

 

[lightning]

ok checked my incoming source water its a 30 on nitrates,
my tank is averaging about 100 , now what, like i said i do 20% water changes every 4 days, is ther anything i can add to filter or help remove nitrates ?

 

[Somonas]

Not really, there are things on the market but why spend money when waterchanges are free.

20% every 4 days is not a lot, if I get a nitrate spike for some reason, I tend to do 50% daily. Fish do not mind if the PH etc. is similar.

 

[lizwinz]

is your tank planted? if not maybe throwing alot of floating plants in would help, along with water changes

anachris (sp) is pretty cheap usually and dosent seem to be very demanding ime...if not to great conditions it just grows thinner stalks

--liz

 

[lightning]

my cichlids have eaten any type of vegetation i put in there so far, i guess im just going to have to do larger water changes

 

[Somonas]

The cichlids eat the floating plants? Try water lettuce, or other large pond plants. water hyacinth etc.

 

[lightning]

you would think these fish never get fed, they go crazy when food or anything they think they are suppost to eat goes in the tank, the other day i was putting some lettuce in the tank and 1 of them bit my finger, the others saw it and thought they was missing out on something and then they started trying to bit me too,

 

[catfishmike]

don't you hate when your fish try to eat you?my neons attack all the hair on my arm when i do tank maintaince.

 

[wayne at home]

Your water changes are too small to be significant, especially with background nitrate 30.... heres some math

55 Gals at 100ppm Nitrate, =5500
- 10 Gals leaves you 4500,
add 10 gals at 30 or 300 leaves you 4800 ppm,
4800/55 = 87 ppm AS SOON AS YOU*VE DONE

You need to go bigger , and/or get those background nitrates. Doing a water changes doesn't remove ALL the nitrates magically it just pulls out a certain, usually small %.
Plus you've got a lot of fish in that tank (many would say overcrowded), so they'll get your nitrate back to 100 in no time at all, especially as you have a nice set of filters so very efficiently produce lots of nitrates very quickly. I've kept bred fish at much higher stocking rates, but the water changes are much bigger - why do you think so many breeders do daily 100%?

 

[RC-Fish-Fan]

Lightning I have some ideas to help you.
starting with a water source with Nitrate =30 is really not acceptable unless you are willing to make 20 G water changes every 4 days. This is too much work and after a while you might regreat taking the fish keeping hobby.

I suggest you get an RO unit that gives you water with 0 nitrate. This way, you may get to the point of making water changes every two weks depending on stock and feeding habits.

I am reasearching options for RO's and after some effort, Dgodwin (One of our fellow forum memers) pointed me to www.airwaterice.com web site. In this web site you can buy an RO unit specially designed for aquarium water with automatic shut off and capable of producing 75 Gallons of water per day for approximately $ 150 (according to my research this is a good value). I just sent them an e-mail with questions regarding my situation.

I posted a message in the equipment forum titled "help me select an RO unit". Perhaps you could find helpful some of the info from my message and its replies.

I hope you find a solution that works for you.


*celebrate

 

[RedTurquoise]

Or the cheap way, plants!

 

[RC-Fish-Fan]

Hi RedTurquoise, it is nice to hear from you again. I didn't know that the plants are capable of reducing such large amount of Nitrate in such a fast rate! .
What plants would you recommend?

 

[RedTurquoise]

THere are quite a few that love nitrates. Plants like hornwort, wisteria, water sprite, salvinia, egeria, hyros, philladendron, etc! Im quite sure that these plants will help the nitrate problem!

 

[lightning]

Hey fish fan i founs alot of RO units on eBay, looks like you could get a decent one for around a 100 bucks,, might keep my eyes on them cause we dint alot of water at the house to and it would be multi purpose investment then...

red turquise,, how many plants would need to be in the tank to actually do any good,, would i need to add special lightning etc,, and i would need something hearty cause like i said before the cichlids eat everything

 

[bumblebee]

I had a similar problem (by my tap water has no nitrates in it) in my 20 gallon tall tank. I found that waste had been getting trapped in and around the caves I had built out of slate. I would try cleaning out the rock you have, you may have waste building up in there making the nitrates stay high. Once it is clean, you can keep it clean by using your gravel pump to fill the tank back up (put your refill bucket higher than the tank) and then shoot the water into the rock crevices. this will force any waste out, that you can vacuum up next time. Hope this helps.

 

[lightning]

that is what i am doing now only i use a 5 gallon water jug to add my water,
i have found some waste in and under the rocks before , but then i started directing my new water i added to my tank directly on them, it flushes out any waste , same concept, just different way of adding water,
my last water change i used filtered water from a water supply place, the ph is 6, im hoping my additives will help to keep it in the 8 range, wednesday i check my water balance will see how it is then

 

[RC-Fish-Fan]

Just a quick update to let you know that after visiting the site www.airwaterice.com and talking to Walter "The H2O Guru" I decided to buy a unit from them. I explained to Walter on the telephone my situation and since I have a fresh water tank (not Reef) I don't need an extra step in the filtration. Walter customized a 75 Gallon per day unit for me at only $ 99. I ordered it. The unit has automatic shut valve and I added a floating shut off valve for $ 14.

I see similar RO units sold for over $ 200 on several aquarium web stores.

They also offer a unit built so that it is paractical to use for both drinking and making Aquarium water. It is described in the web site (apparently it has a configuration that makes it easy to use for both things)

I will keep you guys posted on how it goes.
*celebrate