# ummm, nitrates are 0



## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

Not long ago nitrates were high, somewhere around 60 and I did some extra water changes and got it down to a nice 30 approximately.

Just a few days ago I started DIY c02 and now my nitrates are 0.

I went ahead and did a second feeding and plan to continue feeding twice a day and monitor nitrates.

I did just totally replace the sponges in my xp3 a day or so ago which would drop nitrates a little I assume.

ammonia and nitrite are both 0.

Do you agree that the best thing to do is up the feeding to create more nitrates so the plants have nitrates to feed on? Im sure the fish would be happy.

And while im at it, can anyone recommend a good but not over priced firtilizer? I have been using Flourish comprehensive plant supplement.


I also tested nitrates in my 75 gallon which I also started DIY c02 in and its nitrates are also 0, so I fed the little pigs, mollies always want more food.


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## Darkblade48 (Jan 28, 2008)

A solution to your low nitrates (for your plants) is to dose nitrates directly, rather than overfeeding your fish.

You can do this in one of two ways:

You can buy commercially available products (which can be expensive) and dose accordingly, or you can buy dry chemicals and dose directly (much cheaper).

Please take a look at my planted tank primer article (linked in my signature) for more information regarding what to use, how to dose, etc.


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

I used to feed my fish twice a day months ago, then I slowed down due to nitrates.

Is feeding twice a day over feeding?


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## Darkblade48 (Jan 28, 2008)

pyrrolin said:


> I used to feed my fish twice a day months ago, then I slowed down due to nitrates.
> 
> Is feeding twice a day over feeding?


Depends on how much you feed at once...

Fry require multiple feedings per day, but at the same time, they only eat a little each time...


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

I'll see how things go with two feedings, its not double of what I was feeding once a day, just a little over 1.5 times, will also look into other things


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

Darkblade48 said:


> A solution to your low nitrates (for your plants) is to dose nitrates directly, rather than overfeeding your fish.


Why would that be better than feeding more?


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## Darkblade48 (Jan 28, 2008)

solarz said:


> Why would that be better than feeding more?


By feeding more, there is a higher chance of uneaten food sitting there and rotting, increasing ammonia levels.

Even if we assume all the food is eaten, there will be more fish waste that is being produced, meaning an increase in ammonia. This then needs to be converted to nitrites and then finally nitrates by bacteria. In short, it will take time for the bacterial load to be able to handle the increase in ammonia production.

At the same time, there will be other fish wastes that will be produced (hormones, etc) that can only be removed through water changes.

While it is true that plants preferentially prefer ammonia over nitrates as a nitrogen source, it then becomes a game of fine balance between overfeeding the fish enough so that they are producing enough ammonia for the plants, but not so much so that it harms the fish.


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

Darkblade48 said:


> By feeding more, there is a higher chance of uneaten food sitting there and rotting, increasing ammonia levels.
> 
> Even if we assume all the food is eaten, there will be more fish waste that is being produced, meaning an increase in ammonia. This then needs to be converted to nitrites and then finally nitrates by bacteria. In short, it will take time for the bacterial load to be able to handle the increase in ammonia production.
> 
> ...


I disagree. Nitrogen cycle is a continuous process. Decomposition of food and fish waste happens slowly, giving ample time for the bacteria colony to grow bigger when a large food supply exists.

I regularly feed double doses followed by a few days of fasting. There is never any detectable levels of ammonia in my tank, and my tank does not go into mini-cycles either.

As for fish hormone, that has never been measured and has always just been in the realm of conjecture. You can talk about the harm of additional fish hormone, but IMO the risk of pure chemical fertilizers is much greater.


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## Darkblade48 (Jan 28, 2008)

I am curious solarz, do you add fertilizers to your aquarium (either dry or commercially available ones)?


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

Darkblade48 said:


> I am curious solarz, do you add fertilizers to your aquarium (either dry or commercially available ones)?


I used to experiment with ferts, but stopped after not seeing much difference in growth.

Oh and to the OP:

I'm quite surprised that your nitrate dropped from 60ppm to 0 just from DIY CO2. Did you also change your lights? Have you noticed much faster growth in your plants?


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

upgraded from 2 36 inch t8 to 2 49 inch t5ho not long before.

Plants are growing great

both of my large tanks went to 0 nitrates

will test again in a day or so to see where they are


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## Darkblade48 (Jan 28, 2008)

pyrrolin said:


> upgraded from 2 36 inch t8 to 2 49 inch t5ho not long before.


This is probably why your nitrates bottomed out; your plants are requiring more nutrients due to the fact you are driving them much harder with the intense lighting.


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

Darkblade48 said:


> This is probably why your nitrates bottomed out; your plants are requiring more nutrients due to the fact you are driving them much harder with the intense lighting.


Agreed. The lights were the much bigger difference here.


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

and I believe 2 48 inch t5ho on a 90 gallon is just barely considered high light.

but my 75 with 2 36 inch t8 buttomed out in nitrates also but its quite heavily planted.

and somehow I am still getting algae, lol

Im thinking I need to reduce the time I have the lights on, gotta get a timer to really regulate it properly, any recommendations on where to get a cheap timer that would be in Kingston?


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## Darkblade48 (Jan 28, 2008)

pyrrolin said:


> and I believe 2 48 inch t5ho on a 90 gallon is just barely considered high light.


It depends how far above the surface (of the water) the light is. 90 gallon aquariums are usually 24 inches deep; if the light is just on the glass, you are getting about 100 micromols of PAR, putting you squarely in high light.

4 inches above and you would be looking at ~60 micromols, putting you into medium light.

So, the short answer is it depends where the light is placed.



pyrrolin said:


> Im thinking I need to reduce the time I have the lights on, gotta get a timer to really regulate it properly, any recommendations on where to get a cheap timer that would be in Kingston?


Home Depot, Rona, Canadian Tire should have them, just wait until they go on sale and you can pick them up cheaply.


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

uncovered tank, no glass in the way right now, and lights are just over an inch from the water and the tank is a standard 90 gallon so 2 feet high.

I turned the lights off early tonight, lets see if this helps things.

I also unplug the circulation pump at night because I have my DIY c02 going directly to it to disperse the c02, which it wont do when the pump is off, this might help things a little as im not putting c02 in when there is no light.


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## Darkblade48 (Jan 28, 2008)

pyrrolin said:


> uncovered tank, no glass in the way right now, and lights are just over an inch from the water and the tank is a standard 90 gallon so 2 feet high.


How deep is your substrate?

If your substrate is say ~2 inches deep, from lighting to substrate level is 23 inches. With two T5HO bulbs, I would say you are close to 100 micromols PAR (high light).



pyrrolin said:


> I also unplug the circulation pump at night because I have my DIY c02 going directly to it to disperse the c02, which it wont do when the pump is off, this might help things a little as im not putting c02 in when there is no light.


This is fine.

In any case, to answer your original question, your nitrates are bottoming out because of the increase in lighting. How you choose to increase your nitrates is up to you, but both myself and solarz have provided you with options


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

Probably going to do 3 things

less time for lights on
slight bit more feeding
and looking into adding a fert that has nitrates

little bit of everything to balance it out


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

pyrrolin said:


> and I believe 2 48 inch t5ho on a 90 gallon is just barely considered high light.
> 
> but my 75 with 2 36 inch t8 buttomed out in nitrates also but its quite heavily planted.
> 
> ...


If your nitrates are bottomed out, then your plants are being limited in their growth so it's natural that you'd get algae.

I wasn't sure before, but since you've upgraded your lights, the nitrate level should be stable. You can consider adding more fish to your tank to get a good balance of bioload and plants.


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## baozi2089 (May 17, 2009)

Hey man,
If your nitrate is nil, then other nutrients in your tank will probably be low as well. I have 4 bulbs of T5HO on my 90G. Plants grew very fast initially, but soon I start to see signs of micro nutrient deficiency even when my Nitrate is around 20. IMO the light speeds up the growth but plants will show deficiency real fast as soon as one of the nutrients becomes limited.

I started mixing my own dry fert that I bought from hydroponics store. The deficiency was gone and plants grew pretty fast. But I had algae. So I turned up my CO2. I have a pH meter and turned it from 6.7 down to 6.4/5. My algae disappeared in 2 weeks, now my plants are spotless. I think what happened was I had a lot of light and nutrients but the CO2 I supplied wasn't enough for plants to grow and utilize all the nutrients available. Thus the left over nutrients caused the algae. CO2 kinda helped my plants to compete with algae for nutrients.

To avoid algae, I suggest keeping your CO2 in excess, keeping the light fixed, and slowly increase your ferts until you no longer observe any signs of deficiency. Or to maximize plant growth, increase your ferts until you start seeing algae and tone it down a bit to hit the balance.

For ferts I use the PPS method, unlike EI, this one you don't need to change water for months. http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/...dback/30659-how-make-pps-classic-pps-pro.html


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

Nice, thanks for the tip, that will work well when I do compressed c02, but unfortunately for me, im doing DIY c02 so I can't regulate it, but I can still try my best.


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## Darkblade48 (Jan 28, 2008)

pyrrolin said:


> Nice, thanks for the tip, that will work well when I do compressed c02, but unfortunately for me, im doing DIY c02 so I can't regulate it, but I can still try my best.


Your best bet is then to keep the CO2 levels as stable as possible (i.e. don't wait for your bottle to stop producing gas before switching it over to a new one).


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

I gotta redo it in a few days then.

One problem I have is some of my plants are low light plants are they are growing totally nuts.

I need to buy some new plants, slower growing, higher light.


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## Darkblade48 (Jan 28, 2008)

pyrrolin said:


> I gotta redo it in a few days then.
> 
> One problem I have is some of my plants are low light plants are they are growing totally nuts.
> 
> I need to buy some new plants, slower growing, higher light.


Healthy plants that are growing fast is never a problem 

If you want to slow down growth, decrease the intensity of lighting you have (raise them a few more inches, etc)


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

a few days ago I removed a bunch of really fast growing low light plants and put in some swords and crypts. Tank looks a little empty right now until they get growing but hopefully I can have a little bit of nitrates now for the plants. Plan to do testing tomorrow to see how it's going. I do have alot of vals in the 90 which are supposed to use alot of nitrates so I may still have 0 nitrates but we will see.


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