# Reducing Nitrate Levels



## nick111 (Feb 23, 2016)

Hi,

I am new to the hobby, having just recently acquired a 55 gallon tank as a gift. Since setting it up about 3 months ago, I have been slowly replacing the fake decorations/plants with driftwood and live plants.

The tank is stocked with 1 EB jack dempsey and 1 Lace Synodontis catfish. My levels are "reasonably good", but the one area I'm struggling with is Nitrates.

It was my hope that adding the driftwood / live plants (java moss, java fern and anubias) would help with the nitrate levels, but so far, nothing I do seems to reduce the levels.

Currently my stats are a follows: ph = 7.6, amonia = 0ppm, nitrites = 0ppm, nitrates = between 40-80ppm.

I perform weekly water changes of 30-40%, (best guess), and I refill using tap water. I have tested my tap water with an api kit, and it reads 20ppm nitrates out of the tap (blegh.) so I know that with each change, I'm starting off bad by introducing an additional 20ppm of nitrates into the system.

I treat the water every couple of days with either prime, stresscoat or stability, but none of the really seem to do much as far as I can tell to reduce the nitrate levels..(in fact, I'm still kind of unclear on the real difference between the 3 of them, as they seem to have a lot of overlap).

After each water change, I test again, and usually the nitrate levels hover around the 40ppm mark.. still pretty high.. but I can't seem to get it fall below 40ppm.

So I'd appreciate any other suggestions anyone might have for me.

thanks!
~Nick


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

Change 75% weekly. Plant a LOT of fast growing plants like vallisneria. The slow growers like you have will do little as you have found, and driftwood will add to nitrates if anything.


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## nick111 (Feb 23, 2016)

Ok, cool, I will do even larger water changes. I'm assuming from your suggestion that doing a large water change like that won't crash the tank will it? - Although I'm not sure you could call my tank "stable" with nitrate levels that high -

Thanks for the advice!


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

If crashing the tank means causing a mini cycle...no. There is virtually no beneficial bacteria in the water.

You need to be careful about matching parameters...temp, pH etc. If you could possibly be doing only 30% weekly or maybe even occasionally skip a week like all of us...then work up to 75% by doing daily PWC. 30% today, 40% tomorrow, 50% next day then 75%. Reducing nitrates for fish that are used to nitrates (old tank syndrome) can harm (even kill) them, but we are talking about going from 80ppm to zero ppm in one water change.

You still need the plants. The 20% in your tap is when I think I need a PWC. So you will never get down low enough without the fast growing plants.


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## james1983 (Dec 23, 2007)

Try pothos plants. I have some in my west African tank, no proof of my own that it works since I do not test very often, but some people swear by it.

http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forum ... os.504763/


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## tanker3 (May 18, 2015)

nick111 said:


> I perform weekly water changes of 30-40%, (best guess), and I refill using tap water. I have tested my tap water with an api kit, and it reads 20ppm nitrates out of the tap (blegh.) so I know that with each change, I'm starting off bad by introducing an additional 20ppm of nitrates into the system.
> ~Nick


You are right. With 20ppm of Nitrate from a starting point, you are at a disadvantage. Even with a 75% WC, you are not going to go below 30ppm. You need to do a 100% just to get to 20ppm (not asking you to do that). You will probably need to add a Nitrate remover, or a lot of fast growing plants (both maybe better). If you can, find some water sprite and just let it float, a great Nitrate absorber.


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## nick111 (Feb 23, 2016)

Gents,

Thanks for all the great replies. This is some great advice.

Yes, I suppose I am at a disadvantage from using the tap water, but the python system I have makes it *sooooo* easy, that going back to using buckets and buying distilled water seems like a nightmare.

As far as I can tell, it doesn't *seem* like the higher nitrate levels are harming the fish too much, they seem "normal" to me, but I think perhaps a good plan of attack is to start doing some nightly water changes of an increased size.

I do have conditioners like prime, stability and stress coat, but as far as I can gather from reading up on them, they only seem to neutralize the nitrates for a short period of time (24-48 hrs) they don't actually reduce any of it. Is that correct?

What exactly are water sprites? I would definitely check into that as well..

Thanks again everyone.


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## somebody (May 13, 2014)

I have the same problem (nitrates in tap) I believe I read somewhere, not sure if her or there, chlorimine cause a false positive with nitrate test. I may be thinking ammonia, chlorimine causes false positives with the ammonia test.

Either way I treat with prime at every wc and have tons of fast growing vals in my tank and sump.


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## tanker3 (May 18, 2015)

nick111 said:


> As far as I can tell, it doesn't *seem* like the higher nitrate levels are harming the fish too much, they seem "normal" to me, but I think perhaps a good plan of attack is to start doing some nightly water changes of an increased size.
> 
> I do have conditioners like prime, stability and stress coat, but as far as I can gather from reading up on them, they only seem to neutralize the nitrates for a short period of time (24-48 hrs) they don't actually reduce any of it. Is that correct?
> 
> What exactly are water sprites? I would definitely check into that as well..


1) The high Nitrates hurt the fishes system, not their behavior.
2) I do not mean water conditioners, I mean something like Nitrate removers. They are call Nitrate sponges, but are not sponges.
3) Water Spite is a fast growing plant.


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## nick111 (Feb 23, 2016)

Ok, great, thanks for the clarifications tanker.


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## mambee (Apr 13, 2003)

You should add some floating plants too. They have the benefit of growing fast and utilizing CO2 from the air. Duckweed is a bit of a nuisance plant, but it does a great job of consuming nitrates, and you can throw some of it out when it gets to be too much.


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## nick111 (Feb 23, 2016)

I will definitely look into some floating plants. I'm quite new to this, and as such am rapidly trying to learn about plants on top of tank stuff... it's a lot to absorb.. 

My setup is low-tech, and I'm not sure I'm ready to dive into CO2 yet, so that's why I started off with anubias, java fern & moss, as it seems relatively easy to get going.

I'm thinking about indian fern next to float on top. Would that be a good next choice?


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## mambee (Apr 13, 2003)

My setup is low-tech with no CO2, and I have all the plants which were mentioned plus crypts. The tank is lit with Finnex LEDs (before that T-5HO) and gets indirect sunlight. I have never had problem with hair algae, unlike my other tanks.


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## nick111 (Feb 23, 2016)

Nice... I have a finnex fugeray planted + lightbar set on a timer for the tank as well. =]


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## Biciclid (Jan 27, 2016)

Java fern, anubia, vallisneria ad cryptocoryne grow just fine without CO2, have you considered getting a kit to make your own reverse osmosis water, that should give you almost pure h20


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## dledinger (Mar 20, 2013)

The more water (and bigger) changes you do the less the parameters change each time. Years ago many people never changed their water. This was because a sudden change in parameters and reduction in nitrate would cause illness and often death (as noted above). Especially taboo was BIG water changes. Nothing but bad seemed to happen. That's an old school of thought that's now known to be wrong...but sometimes people are still scared and misinformation exists everywhere in this hobby.

Ramp up your water changes as suggested and you'll have healthy, resilient, fast growing fish. If a big weekly water change doesn't get you where you need to be, then you need to do them more frequently.

FWIW, when I raise fry in 20 longs I siphon the tank dang near to the glass bottom on a daily basis. About as close to 100% as you can get without patting the fish off with a towel. It's amazing how many fish, and just how fast they can grow in a 20 long when they have good water and food.

And don't go ill over the 20ppm in your tap water. It's not that bad and definitely workable. It would take a heck of a lot of plants to accomplish anything.


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## nick111 (Feb 23, 2016)

Ok, thanks..

I still don't have my water parameters where I want them, but I'm doing a lot of trial and error type stuff right now, and the fish "seem" to be adapting / holding up ok, so I will continue to muck about and try to figure stuff out.. 

thanks again for all of your help guys..


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