How low is too low for nitrates?

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trennamw

Aquarium Advice Addict
Joined
Apr 2, 2014
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Location
Portland, OR
For weeks the story has been very high nitrates, now they're dropping more than expected. I'm not sure how to rebalance my water changes.

Before many plants the tank did well at 30% a week. More seemed to stress the fish and nitrates were zero to five at 50%.

Over the last few months I kept adding plants, which didn't alter things much.

Then I was really sick for awhile and missed some changes and nitrates came up. So I've been doing a series of large water changes to catch up, but not as many as I'd have liked.

I expected today to need another really large change, as the nitrates were still pretty high last week. But the nitrates dropped from last week to this week.

I did add 4 bunches of cabomba, but I added Osmocote roots tabs and reduced the photoperiod, so I didn't expect nitrates in the tank to drop.

I guess having changed several things I'm feeling like I don't know what the new balance is!


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Nitrates

Hello tren...

Nitrates are at the end of the nitrogen cycle, so they're not a toxic to fish as ammonia and nitrite. Most fish will easily tolerate nitrates in the 50 ppm range for a short time. Extended exposure will affect their reproduction. If you can keep the level at 25 to 30 ppm, that's acceptable.

Getting the tank used to large, weekly water changes is the way to maintain a steady, healthy water chemistry. I keep a lot of Hornwort floating in my tanks. It seems to help steady the chemistry between water changes.

B
 
Thanks bb!

At the rate I'm going, if I keep my usual change schedule, I'm going to end up with zero nitrates.

Getting them to zero then supplementing back up for plants seems silly, but I also hesitate to reduce water changes. The plant volume is getting high, though, so maybe I am getting to that place where plants reduce the need?


Sent from my iPhone with three hands tied behind my back.
 
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