Tropical Fish Forum
Tropical Fish Keeping Help and Advice => Fishtank Filtration and Cycling => Topic started by: Cazzybaby on May 14, 2014, 10:10:23 PM
-
Today I tested my tank that I just bought which came complete with fish and filter from someone selling up. Ammonia and nitrite are 0 but nitrate is over 80. I did a 50% water change to try and bring it down.it came down to around 40. Do I keep doing smaller water changes everyday to bring it down further or should I do something else? Could the filter need cleaning? I just plugged it straight in and started using it .
-
Nitrate levels aren't as critical as ammonia or nitrite and don't need to be at zero. In fact it's unlikely you'd ever have nitrate levels of zero as water out of your tap probably contains some. 80ppm is on the high side but not the end of the world. I believe it's generally recommended to keep nitrate levels below 40-50ppm. Also the 80ppm reading doesn't necessarily indicate that there's a problem with the filter as the bacteria in the filter don't remove it (although you can get filter media which is supposed to reduce nitrate levels). Best way to keep it down is just through regular water changes. The addition of live pants can also help as they will use the nitrates as part of their growth requirements and some are particularly good at 'hoovering up' your nitrates.
-
Ok thanks for your reply. Could you recommends a type of plant that would be good for this that is beginner friendly ?
The reason I was worrying about the nitrates is because one of my tetras is keep pointing 45% towards the ground and is sometimes pointing at 90% downward. And today my golden barbs look like they are swimming slightly on their sides. I do to know if I'm just getting paranoid now or if something is up.
-
It could be the shock of moving them making them swim a bit odd. Tetras and barbs aren't usually affected by nitrate in the 80s. There are some fish that don't like high nitrate, but if you google what you have you'll soon find if you have some.
Test your tapwater nitrate - that's the lowest you'll get it by water changes.
-
Frogbit's a good floating plant for Nitrate removal. Any of the Hygrophila genus of stem plants are easy to grow (shove 'em in the substrate) and good Nitrate hoovers, too. Hygrophila rosae australis is my fave.
-
I've heard Hornwort is good as well, although I haven't had any of this myself. Elodea tends to be fast/easy growing so is likely to utilise a lot of Nitrates as well, although it isn't the most attractive plant going - good as a starter plant though.
-
So I've bought two plants, although don't know the names :-/ one is like a grass the other was described by the shop as 'like a weed' and that it grows fast .
-
Nitrates are basically the price we pay for biological filtration and shouldn't really be obsessed about too much. What Sue says is basically true but misleading. (Oh God, I'm 'sort of' criticising her post! :yikes: Please forgive me all knowing one, it won't happen again!)
Test your tap-water nitrate - that's the lowest you'll get it by water changes.
This is true as far as it goes, but in order to get your tank nitrate down to the tap-water levels, you may have to do a 100% water change. A more realistic target for nitrate levels is the tap-water level to tap-water level plus 25-30. And remember, tap-water levels are not a constant value.
-
My nitrates seem to be a constant 40ppm despite numerous water changes. Think our tap water is 10-20ppm so I just test my tank water every other day to keep a check on it. Got quite a few live plants as well to see if that helps!
-
Don't forget that the nitrate test isn't that good, can be misleading. In any case, nitrate levels within reason are not that critical and testing for ammonia and nitrites is much more important, The main problems with nitrates seem to arise when introducing new fish which have been kept in a low nitrate environment. It is always a good idea to test for nitrate before introducing new fish and do a large water change if necessary. Fish already in a tank seem to adapt to higher levels provided the change isn't too fast.
-
What Sue says is basically true but misleading.
I should have said that doing just water changes can't get the nitrate level any lower than the level in the tap water you are using on that day. And yes, 100% changes would be needed to lower it to the same as the tap water. If you want to get it lower than the tap water level, you have to use other means.
Fish can indeed adapt to a high nitrate. This is what happens when a tank has 'old tank syndrome'; that is a tank that doesn't get enough water changes, if any at all. And all sorts of other things build up as well. When new fish are put in a tank like this, the sudden high levels can kill them.
-
I've had to postpone my trip to buy fish today. I was doing a final water check and amonnia and nitrites were fine but the nitrates were somewhere between 80-160ppm. I did a 50% water change which took it down to somewhere between 40ppm & 80ppm and then tested our tap water and that was 40ppm. Can I be happy with this result and add some fish tomorrow?
-
Given that all nitrate testers for home use are not that accurate anyway, yes that level is fine. Just be sure to acclimate the fish slowly. Float the bag in the tank to allow the temperature to reach the same, then add a small amount of tank water to the bag every 15 mins or so until you have doubled the amount of water in there. The net the fish out and release them into the tank. Let them swim out in their own time.
-
Thanks Sue, I'll re-test tomorrow before we leave. We'll get x6 Glowlight Tetras tomorrow and go from there.
I'd read up on dwarf suckermouths on wiki and other fish sites, which were the first fish we were going to add and acording to stats they should be ok, what I hadnt done though was look on other forums, the poor fish have an horrendous death rate and are actually really hard to keep.
Several lessons learned by me today, all thankfully pre fish.
-
If you mean otocinclus, yes they can be a problem. It's mainly due to the way they are collected from the wild - so many of them die before they even reach the shops. And these fish have an odd quirk; once they are starved past a certain point they can't start eating again, and they are rarely fed the correct food after capture. They also need a mature tank with lots of the right kind of algae for them to eat and new tanks don't have that kind of algae so otos can be hard to feed in new tanks.
All in all, a fish to be avoided for new tanks.