Tank-o-Fish
Aquarium Advice Regular
Hi there! After a few weeks of fishless cycling, I put 10 Norman's Lampeye's in my 15 gal 3 days ago. They are doing very well as far as I can see. Two things concern me, however, the first being very high nitrates.
The night before buying the fish, I tested the water:
pH: 7.8
Ammonia: 0.25 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Nitrate: 40 - 80 ppm (I can't really tell which one it is on my API Master Test kit)
Seemed all fine too me, except for the high nitrates ofcourse. This can be expected after cycling a tank, so I did a 90% WC. The next day I got the fish and everything is going well. Yesterday I decided to run some tests and surprisingly, not one level changed; including the nitrates. After doing a 40% water change, I tested the water again, and the nitrates are somehow up again at 40 - 80. Testing my tap water reveals that it already has 20 ppm of nitrates in it. Is this normal? I live in Holland, by the way. I can't explain such a quick rise and also don't now how I can bring it down since a WC doesn't seem to help. Or could it be that the fertilizer beneath the gravel is the cause of this?
Which brings me to my next question, which I'm now thinking might be related. Ever since I got the tank, the plants are not doing that well. It's no disaster, but as you can see on the pictures, every plant has a few leaves that look as if starving off (some actually do and I remove them). I thought it might be my mistreating of the roots when I first got the aquarium, I moved them around quite a bit. But now also the Elodea is showing decay, even though it's no heavy root feeder afaik. I also added roots tabs some time ago, the Amazon Sword seems to be looking a bit better now, but still not in the race for a beauty contest.
Anyways, thanks for thinking along! I have a feeling these two problems might be connected, which is why I mentioned them both in this thread.
The night before buying the fish, I tested the water:
pH: 7.8
Ammonia: 0.25 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Nitrate: 40 - 80 ppm (I can't really tell which one it is on my API Master Test kit)
Seemed all fine too me, except for the high nitrates ofcourse. This can be expected after cycling a tank, so I did a 90% WC. The next day I got the fish and everything is going well. Yesterday I decided to run some tests and surprisingly, not one level changed; including the nitrates. After doing a 40% water change, I tested the water again, and the nitrates are somehow up again at 40 - 80. Testing my tap water reveals that it already has 20 ppm of nitrates in it. Is this normal? I live in Holland, by the way. I can't explain such a quick rise and also don't now how I can bring it down since a WC doesn't seem to help. Or could it be that the fertilizer beneath the gravel is the cause of this?
Which brings me to my next question, which I'm now thinking might be related. Ever since I got the tank, the plants are not doing that well. It's no disaster, but as you can see on the pictures, every plant has a few leaves that look as if starving off (some actually do and I remove them). I thought it might be my mistreating of the roots when I first got the aquarium, I moved them around quite a bit. But now also the Elodea is showing decay, even though it's no heavy root feeder afaik. I also added roots tabs some time ago, the Amazon Sword seems to be looking a bit better now, but still not in the race for a beauty contest.
Anyways, thanks for thinking along! I have a feeling these two problems might be connected, which is why I mentioned them both in this thread.