# nitrate levels?



## volgirl4life (Mar 2, 2011)

Okay I put up a post a couple days ago regarding the black beard algae I have growing everywhere. I got a lot of tips but it brought me to another question. Apparentely a big cause of algae could be the high level of nitrates. I did a water change last night, tried to scrub down as much algae as I could, and this time added Amquel Plus to the tank in attempts to lower the nitrate level. I checked my nitrates this morning and it's still high (80 ppm). So now my new question is, should high levels of nitrates be a concern? And if it is, how can I lower it?? I control their feedings and just did a water change last night.

I have two cons (about 4 inches each) and two JDs (about 6 inches each). The fish are older as I got them from a friend but my tank itself is about 7 months old.

I also apologize if I put this in the wrong forum, couldn't really decide where to put this topic?

Sarah


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## ivanmike (Jun 15, 2003)

Amquel isn't going to reduce nitrate levels.

How often do you change the water and vaccum the gravel? Likewise, do you rinse off your filter media in tank water every time you do a water change?

Cichlids are messy fish and make a lot of waste. I consider 50% a week to be the minimum water change for neotropical cichlids, and I have done 80% weekly or even 50% 2x a week with some overstocked tanks or those containing sensitive fish.

My gut level guess is you don't do water changes that frequently and might not be using a gravel vac attachment and/or rinsing the filter media in tank water when doing water changes. If I'm right, doing a bunch of 50% water changes in a week (with gravel vacuuming and rinsing the filter media once) should set you back right, and then keeping up with the 50-75% change every week should keep you in the clear.

I would check your tap water for nitrates to see what they are right out of the tap as well.

ps - this water is GREAT for watering plants or a garden. (just look at those nutrient levels!). I had hibiscus blooming 12 months out of the year with water from my oscar tank.


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## TheFishGuy (Apr 21, 2005)

> ps - this water is GREAT for watering plants or a garden. (just look at those nutrient levels!). I had hibiscus blooming 12 months out of the year with water from my oscar tank.


Couldn't agree more!


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## volgirl4life (Mar 2, 2011)

ivanmike said:


> Amquel isn't going to reduce nitrate levels.
> 
> How often do you change the water and vaccum the gravel? Likewise, do you rinse off your filter media in tank water every time you do a water change?
> 
> ...


.

What do you suggest I use when I change the water? I was using stress coat but then someone told me to use Amquel Plus.

I change the water every other week which I'm finding out from everyone is not enough. So I will be doing it weekly now. I rinse the filter maybe once a month. What do you recommend with that? I do use a gravel vac however been finding that I have a hard time with it having substrate sand on the bottom. It seems to suck up the sand as well.

Great tip with the plants. I've been doing daily water changes in attempts to bring down the nitrate levels so I will give my plants some of that water tonight. Please let me know what I shoudl treat the water with as I do the water changes.

Thanks!
Sarah


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## TheFishGuy (Apr 21, 2005)

Sarah, treat with anything that removes chlorine and chloromine. It does not matter the brand.

I would simply hold the siphon tube just above the surface of the sand to suck the poo and uneaten food off the top. Once every three months or so you can remove all of the decor and jet the sand using your hose and your thumb over the end of it. After it settles siphon the stuff off the top. Obviously you'll have to siphon some water out before jetting so the tank doesn't over flow... Sand is a P.I.T.A. in my opinion unless you have UGJ (under gravel jets) keeping it clean. That's a whole other subject though... Example; my frontosa tank has been untouched for almost three years aside from weekly 1/3 water changes...

Rinsing the filter pad once per mopnth is fine. 

Personally I like to try and do 1/3 water changes once per week. I haven't tested my water in forever. Oh, and I never will... I don't buy into it, it's a waste of money. I'm a big fan of the K.I.S.S. method. And it works. I have plenty of breeders awards to prove it and over 25 years of breeding cichlids under my belt. When I first joined this site I went out and bought a master test kit and tested a handful of tanks... Now it collects dust... Waste of $$$.


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## ivanmike (Jun 15, 2003)

TheFishGuy said:


> Sarah, treat with anything that removes chlorine and chloromine. It does not matter the brand.
> 
> I would simply hold the siphon tube just above the surface of the sand to suck the poo and uneaten food off the top. Once every three months or so you can remove all of the decor and jet the sand using your hose and your thumb over the end of it. After it settles siphon the stuff off the top. Obviously you'll have to siphon some water out before jetting so the tank doesn't over flow... Sand is a P.I.T.A. in my opinion unless you have UGJ (under gravel jets) keeping it clean. That's a whole other subject though... Example; my frontosa tank has been untouched for almost three years aside from weekly 1/3 water changes...
> 
> ...


all that's good. I would recommend stirring up the sand every time you do a water change (after you siphon off the "poo") to grab anything that might have sunk in there - sand can go anaerobic and produce hydrogen sulfide - this is more of an issue with cichlids as they are so dirty. I tend to clean filter media once a week, but once a month is cool too ( i probably really only clean mine once every two weeks!) In your current case I would do it once a week for a while. I would also keep up the water changes a few times a week for a couple of weeks right now to get rid of the nitrates. After that, with the fish you have I would really change 75% a week or do the few times a week like TFG does. As far as sucking up sand - I use a bucket anyway to catch tank water (even though I use a python type product and drain it outside - I keep some buckets full for the plants). The sand that gets sucked out ends up in the buckets and you can put it back in the tank. To be honest, the lighter sand particles that get sucked up are more of a PITA - and the coarser sand particles that remain will not give you the same issue. Changing to a longer gravel vac tube can also alleviate this problem as the sand finally sinks and doesn't make it out of the tube - sometimes....


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## bernie comeau (Feb 19, 2007)

volgirl4life said:


> still high (80 ppm). So now my new question is, should high levels of nitrates be a concern?


Yes. Difficult to say whether high nitrates are harmfull to a fish, in and of itself. But it is generally well known that fish that live in tanks with very high nitrates often develope health problems and disease over a long period of time, and usually grow slower. High nitrates are a reflection of a high amount of organic break down and generally an indication of poor water quality. You put something in(Food), you have to take the equivalent out(water and fish waste), otherwise it will accumulate over time. I know it's not real accurate to compare an aquarium to the wild, but virtually all aquariums resemble an eutrophic body of water (a lake or river that is getting a limiting nutrient from agricultural run off or human sewage). Just for comparison, our river here in Saskatoon has zero nitrates in ppm, as do almost all lakes and rivers(though some of these are somewhat eutrophic, as well!).

While I agree with the FishGuy that testing and test kits can be a waste of time and money, I still find it usefull to test for nitrates on occasion. I use to test for ammonia and nitrite quite regularily but never once seen a value other then zero....so concluded there wasn't much reason for me to do so. pH same thing----whether I tested it straight out of the river, tap or aquarium, there was little difference. Once you have been doing something for a long time, there is much less reason to test. But ways and methods do change over time and there is still a need to monitor on occasion...otherwise you may not know if your methods are suffecient and wastes are accumulating. Ultimately, the level of nitrates will show how effective your methods of removal are, in relation to the load of the tank.

Since black brush algae is growing excessively( to your standards), I would be inclined to do large water changes frequently, in order to get your nutrient levels down fairly quickly. Their is no doubt that higher levels of nutrients will grow the stuff faster, though water changes themselves will probably do little to eliminate what is already there in the short term. When I use to have gravel, i use to use a cut off 2 litre pop bottle to vacume substrate. I cut it off about 3" from the top, though for sand i would imagine cutting it at the very bottom would prevent much sand from getting sucked up(?).

Prime and amquel+ are probably amongst the better declorinators because they will bind to the ammonia that is released when chloramine is broken down. My own experience with larger and larger water changes is that the fish seem to like it. In the past when i did 1/4 to a 1/3 water change there was often a loss of appetite.....adult fish couldn't be fed for a whole day as they would not eat! Now with an 80-90%, i can feed any tank with in an hour of a water change and there is actually an increase in appetite! I speculate that in the past there was greater change in water chemistry with a small change....now my tank water is closer to tap water, so there is less of a shock(??). I use a garden hose for water change; it takes some time but is very little work----I watch T.V, go on the computer or observe some other tank. Then when the water level is down, I spend about 10 minutes sucking fish waste off the bottom of the tank. I add declorinator based on the total volume of the tank, and then fill directly with similar temp. water directly with the hose. When the tank is filled, I clean the canister filter.The sponges in tap water (probably better to do it in a pail of aquarium water) and on rare occasion rinse the bio-media(ceramic rings) in aqaurium water. 
A large water change is definately more effective in reducing nutrient levels then numerous small changes. With numerous small changes, some of the water changed is always the new water that was just recently changed. Two 25% changes is actually equivalent to one 44% change. Two 50% changes is actually equivalent to one 75% change.


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## TheFishGuy (Apr 21, 2005)

Bernie, I only see one flaw in your operation, one should not use the same hose to drain as they do to fill. Especially a garden hose. Garden hoese will breed incredible amounts of bacteria on the inside which then goes directly back into the tank! I use a python brand hose to fill my tanks, never siphoning through them, as a matter of fact it's never unhooked from my slop sink in the fish room! LOL But I use short 7' lengths of garden hose to drain, unless I've plumbed drains into the filters. My operation is quite different from most peoples tanks. I have a fish room and none of the tanks have substrate. Siphoning poo and uneaten food out of the tank is a breeze. I have a one foot section of half inch copper pipe shoved into one end of the siphon hose to make it rigid and easy to handle. My tank filling hose has a "J" made from 1/2" pvc with a valve incorperated into it for ease of filling. Water changes on 30 tanks takes about 2 hrs. Honestly I have not used the end of the python tube for emtying or filling tanks in years!

All that being said... Automatic water changers like the one on my 1200 are the way to go... Zero maint....


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## bernie comeau (Feb 19, 2007)

TheFishGuy said:


> Bernie, I only see one flaw in your operation, one should not use the same hose to drain as they do to fill. Especially a garden hose. Garden hoese will breed incredible amounts of bacteria on the inside which then goes directly back into the tank!
> 
> All that being said... Automatic water changers like the one on my 1200 are the way to go... Zero maint....


I'm not convinced that a garden hose will pump large amounts of harmfull bacteria into an aquarium.....after it has just had over 150 gallons run through it! Not only that but it is being exposed to chloramine in the water as it is filling the tank. Bacteria is everwhere....most are beneficial; few pose a harmfull threat to a healthy animal.

I ran an automatic drip system for many years......mine didn't keep up with the load of my tank. It was crude and very simple, but would not work properly above 1 1/2 gallons per hour.....I wiped out my entire 180 gal. with hot water back in 2005, as I attempted to run it at a higher rate and a valve opened up. My 100 gal. was spared, as I was temporarily running a tiny water pump in my wet/dry filter that returned to the 100 gal. Later, I actually added another drip to my 100 gal. as well, for about 3 gal. per hour removal with both, in total. But my solution was to return to weekly water changes, as well. You really need a lot of water change to amount to anything with a drip system because it is a continous dilution. If you go high enough, then i start to wonder about the long term affects of exposure to chloramine. I wouldn't consider an automatic system again unles it was complex enough to neutralize chloramine, as well as change a large enough amount at a time to be effective. With a very large tank, I'm inclined to think that a very large algae scrubber would be the way to go(with some water change as well).....though I have yet to try one out.


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## TheFishGuy (Apr 21, 2005)

Keep in mind that not every water treatment facility uses chloromine though... Ours doesn't...

Also, do a quick google search about bacteria in garden hoses...


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## bernie comeau (Feb 19, 2007)

TheFishGuy said:


> Keep in mind that not every water treatment facility uses chloromine though... Ours doesn't...
> 
> Also, do a quick google search about bacteria in garden hoses...


Yes, I'm aware that some water treatment plants still use chlorine. Ours did in the past, but switched to chloramine (not sure when).

Did a google search, but couldn't find too much other then opinions on drinking from a garden hose. I have no problems drinking out of a garden hose ----as long as the water has been run through it for quite some time. I realize it's a porous material....left full of water in the heat, and the end in contact with soil it certainly could breed a lot of bacteria. Still, with enough water run through it, very little, if any risk of getting sick by drinking out of one, IMO.

I certainly wouldn't drink out of my aquarium garden hose... then again, I certainly wouldn't drink aqaurium water either. On a few occasions I've gotten a mouth full when starting the siphon :lol: , but I spit it out right away. Got a mouth full of gasoline a few times as well, when attempting to siphon gas.......that's definately much worse! :lol: Used the same hose for over 10 years now.....can't see why it should harbour different bacteria then my aquarium would. I definately beleive if you took a swab, put it on a plate and did a count that it would show that the bottom of my tanks harbour much more bacteria then the inside of my garden hose does. The hose is drained after every use. Incidently, I've been thinking about getting a couple more hoses for quite some time now.....use two to drain and one to fill, to speed up the process. Though that will be more cumbersome and a little more work. But I am really not too concerned about bacteria..... they are everywhere and are an intgrel part of life.


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## TheFishGuy (Apr 21, 2005)




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## ahud (Aug 22, 2009)

OK, I'll bite. TheFishGuy, have you had an incident where you believe the bacteria in a hose caused the problem?


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## TheFishGuy (Apr 21, 2005)

No! LOL But after years of doing what Bernie does Someone brought it up to me... So I di what any respectable human being does... I smelled the hose... That was enough for me! LOL

That nasty stank being pumped into my tanks was no longer acceptable! LOL


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## SantaMonica (Jun 22, 2009)

Yes an algae scrubber will fix the nitrate problem, but something else that most people don't know about it that algae produces Vitamin C, which break chloramines into chlorine + ammonia. Algae then eats the ammonia, and the chlorine then evaporates.

So if you don't add to much water at one time, you can let the algae do the filtering for you. I myself have a 10g FW tank that has been running only on an algae scrubber for 1.5 years with no waterchanges, and I've been topping off with tap.


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## ZeroSystem (Sep 4, 2005)

Isn't vitamin C an acid though? Or maybe citric acid is just such a main source of VC that it's why I think that when I read the word. I would assume that there would be an adverse effect on the PH in the tank though still, as I don't see what is reducing the nitrates, which is truly still an acid I believe.. Sounds like it could easily lead to an "Old Tank Syndrome" situation to me.


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## SantaMonica (Jun 22, 2009)

Vitamin C is what reefers dose their tanks to feed the corals, and is also what some people dose their tap water with to separate the chlorine from the ammonia. pH actually increases though, because of the photosynthesis of the algae which consumes CO2; the typical tank raises .1 or .2 points in pH.

What's reducing nitrates? That's what algae eats... nitrates. A tank of N=20 can be reduced to zero in a few days. And it stays there. With no waterchanges. Algae is what consumes all the nitrates in the oceans and lakes.

And as for OTS, my opinion is that it is caused by accumulation of metals in the substrate. Metals are supplied in the food you feed. Algae consumes metals too, including copper.


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## reflexhunter (Jul 25, 2009)

Excell works in killing Blackbeard algae, had it in my planted tank,took out all decorations and placed in a bucket with water and bleach over night, rinsed and let it dry off completely,tried to remove as much by hand as possible but the stuff is really stubborn.

The fish ate what left on the decorations and the excell kept it from coming back, used it for a few weeks after all of the Blackbeard was gone just to be on the safe side, and I left the lights off for a couple of weeks as well.


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## bernie comeau (Feb 19, 2007)

ZeroSystem said:


> I don't see what is reducing the nitrates,


The algae uses it, as well as other nutrients. But I must add that it is still removal, as the algae is cleaned off the scrubber, say once a week, and discarded. If old algae is not consistently harvested it would eventually start to die off, rot, and releaase it's nutrients back into the water.

So like a water change, it is removal from the system, as long as a good portion of algae is being harvested on a consistent basis. The alage probably would make good compost or even directly into a garden or flower bed as fertilizer ----wouldn't really be any other good use for it.


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