Needin' some nitrates in my 55

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crazyred

Aquarium Advice Addict
Joined
Oct 13, 2005
Messages
1,643
Location
Harlingen, Texas
Well, I never had this problem in my 29 because of the lower light, low light plants, and high fish load.....I always had plenty of 'trates......matter of fact, I had to step up PWC's to keep them under control in there. My 55 is another story. It has PC lights and fast growing nitrate suckers and pretty low fish load for now. Give me some recommendations on adding 'trates to this tank. I'm afraid my plants are going to suffer. I do plan on adding some more fish, but with the plant load I have, I'm not it's going to help. My 'trates are at 0 ppm right now along with the ammonia and nitrites, and yes, the tank is cycled. HELP! Tank specs: 55 gal, planted with lots of hygro (sunset & polysperma) 3 amazon swords, red rubin sword, cabomba, jungle vals, E. tennellus, foxtail, other stuff I can't think of right now. :oops: Fish load: 4 young anglefish, 2 blue rams, 3-4 ignorant adutl platies and their ubiquitous fry (about 5 or 6 babies).
 
You can use flourish nitrogen or you can order potassuin nitrate from gregwatson.com. The dry fert will last you a long time, the flourish nitrogen will get used up quickly in a 55 gallon tank.
 
Do you know how your phosphates are? May want to check them as well. Here's the site for Greg Watsons, if you think you would feel comfortable making your own dosing schedule. If not, then you could try Flourish Nitrogen, and Flourish Phosphate if it's needed. If you don't have Potassium, might want to check into it as well.

http://www.gregwatson.com/DryAquaticFertilizers.asp
 
Sweet, I'll get in an order in tomorrow. Not sure about the phosphates....no test for that ATM, but I know I have potassium. I'm currently dosing Leaf Zone and regular Flourish every 2 days. I put root tabs around the swords, and I have two DIY cannisters on the Red Sea turbo Venturi diffuser. I'm 100% certain I'm needing nitrates. My test was between 0-5 ppm using the AP test. My 'trates were 20 ppm in my 29. I did the last PWC two days ago on both tanks. Greg Watson, here I come.
 
crazyred said:
Sweet, I'll get in an order in tomorrow. Not sure about the phosphates....no test for that ATM, but I know I have potassium. I'm currently dosing Leaf Zone and regular Flourish every 2 days. I put root tabs around the swords, and I have two DIY cannisters on the Red Sea turbo Venturi diffuser. I'm 100% certain I'm needing nitrates. My test was between 0-5 ppm using the AP test. My 'trates were 20 ppm in my 29. I did the last PWC two days ago on both tanks. Greg Watson, here I come.

Well, you said you were dosing regular Flourish? That pretty much doses everything, including Nitrogen. Here's what Flourish has:
http://www.seachem.com/products/product_pages/Flourish.html
So with the Leaf Zone, looks like the micros are covered. So just dosing the nitrogen would be your only addition. You are also dosing some phosphates with the Flourish as well. So you may not even need it.
 
So I guess, even if my nitrates are low in the test, if I'm dosing Flourish then I don't need to add any additional nitrogen? or would adding more nitrates benefit? I don't see any plant problems so far, in fact, the hygro is growing like a weed. All the plants are growing well, except a couple of my E. tennellus plants.....not sure what's wrong with them. A couple of them are doing great and a couple of them seem to not be growing at all. I thought maybe the tennellus plants I was having problems with were being shaded too much by the DW, but I moved them out from under the shadow and they still look like they'r just not thriving. Any ideas? Should I go for more 'trates despite the Flourish? Any other things I need to be adding?
 
If everything looks fine, then I wouldn't add anything yet. But I'd probably get some nitrogen to have on hand.
 
There is not enough N in Flourish Comprehensive to make a difference. If your N is reading 0, and you are sure you did the test right you could have problems quickly. I would order the potassium nitrate, the mono potassium phosphate and the potassium sulfate just to have them available to you. I would also get the Seachem phosphate kit. You dont want to fly blind with a high light tank.
 
I would get the Greg Watson ferts. I'm considering ordering some for my 29g when I add DIY CO2. They are pretty cheap and you get alot.

Low nitrates are what causes blue-green algae isn't it? I'd try to avoid that stuff because I hear its hard to get rid of..and looks nasty too!
 
Yeah, I know I did the test right....I've been worried about this possibility since I set-up this tank. I sent an email to Greg Watson. I'm def. going to buy at LEAST the Potassium Nitrate right now, and I'll get the phosphate test and go from there. I may end up ordering other stuff later if need be. Boy, I better get another job!!! LOL
 
His shipping is I think like 9.95 for each order, so ordering everything at once is a lot cheaper.

I know I'm not the only one who has a problem buying $3 worth of stuff for $13 :)
 
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