# CRS safe nitrate removal resins?



## dchow (Oct 30, 2009)

Are there any CRS safe nitrate removal resins? 

My tank is 20G and pretty decently planted but my nitrates are constantly 20ppm. I do a WC to bring it down to 10PPM and it fires back up to 20 in 12-24 hrs.

I have like 10+ stems of 
hygrophilia polysperma
Rotala 
Hygrophilia difformis

There's also riccia, glosso, a mossball, and a few stems of hornwort. I have some floating plants from AI, and some duckweed. 

I'm using distilled water with mosura mineral plus with ADA I that's about a month old. I guess I used about 3/4 of the bag. Also, there's floating twigs and stuff from the aquasoil, should I have removed this?


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## dchow (Oct 30, 2009)

Also stocking is 23 CRS + 2 otos. 
Filter is an eheim 221r that's run for about a month. 

I feed half a piece of borneowild grow every other day. I it amounts to something that's about 5mm x 5mm x 3mm thick.


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## coldmantis (Apr 5, 2010)

ah someone else with the same problem as me, except that my nitrate hits 30-40ppm and I have 20+ java fern plantlets, *150*+ stems of various stem plants, lots of taiwan moss, lots of floating plants. nitrates just creeps up. what works for me is barley pellets you can get it at petsmart or big al's just put like half to a full fist full of them in a mesh bag and drop it in, your nitrates will be 5ppm and under in about a day or two but here is the big but, white film will grow on it and can be messy to your tank. If you put the bag with shrimp they will go ape shit for it and start picking at the mesh bag. I don't keep it in the same compartment as shrimp so the white film just keeps on growing and messes up one of my non inhabited compartments.


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## dchow (Oct 30, 2009)

Its really bizzare. I leave my lights on from 8PM to 5AM.
I used some Mosura BT-9 at the recommended dosage and upped my tds with mineral plus to 140. The CRS look more vibrant now. 

If I test when the lights are on its 20ppm. 
If I test when the lights are off at 8am its 10ppm.

I looked at a tank with nice healthy breeding CRS last night. Most of mine have similar colors. I've still got a few that look like crap but meh. I'm hoping its just the ending of the ADA ammonia leech. My SSS all look great. Its those darned S ones that haven't fully colored and 2 have died in the last 4 days. 

-shrug- I'm just going to let the water sit. I suppose the stonger ones will survive until the nitrates lower on their own.


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

Water changes? Also, feeding less? I found with the Netlea soil I'm currently using, I got crazy algae growth for the first 2 months with it, then now it seems to have stabilized. Also, I stopped feeding everyday, so that seems to have helped a bit too.


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## dchow (Oct 30, 2009)

Unfortunately both times I did a 15% WC a shrimp died within the following 24 hours. 

I basically use an airiine to siphon it out and try to match tds of tank to tds of distilled water + minerals as closely as I can. This is usually within 5ppm. And then I drip it back in the tank. -shrug- water temps are about the same as everything is at room. 

I've reduced feeding to once every third day. And I've started to pick out dead leaves. 

At this point I'm at a loss as to what I'm doing wrong.


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## dchow (Oct 30, 2009)

*pictures*

I took some pictures. The nitrate is still at 10-20ppm.


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## coldmantis (Apr 5, 2010)

wow your tank looks so nice and green, were the majority of your plants from me?, if so good job at taking care of them.


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## ThaChingster (Feb 25, 2011)

Canister filters are sometimes called nitrate factories
you may want to wash out half of the filter material in tap water
then wait a month
and wash out the other half


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## dchow (Oct 30, 2009)

coldmantis said:


> wow your tank looks so nice and green, were the majority of your plants from me?, if so good job at taking care of them.


About half I guess. I trimmed and replanted some stuffs.


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## dchow (Oct 30, 2009)

ThaChingster said:


> Canister filters are sometimes called nitrate factories
> you may want to wash out half of the filter material in tap water
> then wait a month
> and wash out the other half


Hmm... I will try this tomorrow.

Would I rinse half out? And let it sit aside and use new media for the other half? I've got a half bottle of seachem denitrate media somewhere.


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

ThaChingster said:


> Canister filters are sometimes called nitrate factories
> you may want to wash out half of the filter material in tap water
> then wait a month
> and wash out the other half


I wouldn't rinse any of it in tap water - you can kill off some of the bacteria and risk a mini cycle.

My routine for cleaning cansiters is as follows:

1. I wash out the coarse filter media (coarse sponges, ceramic rings, etc - non-biofilter material) in tap water and get all the crap out.

2. I wash out ALL of the biofilter material in water from a water change - hence, I usually clean filters during water changes. It's important to use the aquarium water as you just want to wash out all the detrius and mulm collected in the biofilter material without killing the bacteria that have colonized the porous media.

After you rinse it, I like to keep it submerged in aquarium water while I finish everything else.

3. I then either change out 100% of the filter floss, or give it a good rinse under tap water to get rid of all the trapped crap.

Then put it all back together again and you're good to go  I'd clean the whole filter at once - it's a pain in the ass to clean half the filter media as it'll just intermix anyways, and it's a pain to have to take everything apart again. This worked fine on my CRS tank too - and now they're multiplying like crazy!

Also, I wouldn't worry too much about the algae - I was freaking 3 weeks ago because of the rampant algae growth, but with a few 5g water changes (on a 20 g tank), they seemed to have died back. Probably a combination of less leaching of nutrients and less feeding, but either way, there's less nutrients and less algae.


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## dchow (Oct 30, 2009)

ameekplec. said:


> I wouldn't rinse any of it in tap water - you can kill off some of the bacteria and risk a mini cycle.
> 
> My routine for cleaning cansiters is as follows:
> 
> ...


That's what I do with normal fish aquariums. I think I'll just use distilled this time around for the rinse.

Side question: do I really need efhimech? From my understanding all it does is mechanical filtration and I can't imagine that much if anything gets through the sponge filter I have as an intake. I'm thinking it might be better to just replace this with biomedia.


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

dchow said:


> That's what I do with normal fish aquariums. I think I'll just use distilled this time around for the rinse.
> 
> Side question: do I really need efhimech? From my understanding all it does is mechanical filtration and I can't imagine that much if anything gets through the sponge filter I have as an intake. I'm thinking it might be better to just replace this with biomedia.


Why use distilled for the rinse? It really won't make it any cleaner than normal tap water.

The efimech is ther to distribute the flow evenly and to trap really coarse crap in from really clogging up the blue coarse sponge. Of course you don't have to run it, and you can replace it with more biofilter material, but there really isn't a need to.

Also, one last note - there is something to be said about just leaving the tank and keeping your fingers out of it for a few days - often this can be much more useful than all the careful tinkering you'll ever do.


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## dchow (Oct 30, 2009)

Most of them look better so I'm not all figgity about the nitrates now. Thanks so much for the advice. 

ps. are you always up this late?

edit: i was going to use distilled + some tank water just to create a bit of larger volume to do a rinse. No other real reason.


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

Good choice 

I have very bad sleeping habits. Tomorrow I'll probbaly sleep at 9 since I've gone to bed past 3:30 2 nights in a row


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## CrystalMethShrimp (Apr 27, 2010)

a combination of duckweed and barley pellets brought my 10ppm close to 0ppm.

Atleast 3/4 of the water surface should be covered by duckweed which is easy to do since they grow so fast.

I use the borneo wild barley pellets which I just toss 3-4 in the tank each week.
The shrimps pick them apart and the tiny barley pieces just sink in the substrate and grow beneficial bacteria on them. 

Are the barley pellets you buy from pets smart the same kind? I'd imagine it's intended use for rabbits and comes in a large bag which I'll never end up using even 1/4?


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## dchow (Oct 30, 2009)

Meh. Woke up this morning and another one had died. I think I'm just going to leave the tank/filter alone and see what happens. -sigh-


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## coldmantis (Apr 5, 2010)

CrystalMethShrimp said:


> a combination of duckweed and barley pellets brought my 10ppm close to 0ppm.
> 
> Atleast 3/4 of the water surface should be covered by duckweed which is easy to do since they grow so fast.
> 
> ...


they are for ponds and it's 2.5lbs!! per bag shrimps love eating it
pellets


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## dchow (Oct 30, 2009)

this is so damn frustrating. that is all /endrant


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