Nitrate at 160ppm and it looks like it's killing my amazon sword?

[Sai Sauce]

How do I get rid of it? I have a platy and 15 ghost shrimp in a ten gallon. My ph is 7.4, ammonia is 0ppm, nitrite is 0ppm. Nitrate is at 160 what should I do? I have no water conditioner, waiting for the shipment to come. My plant amazon sword is starting to turn a bit brownish. What should I do? Please help.


Using My iPad and I Love Fishes! <~8~>

 

[Masha]

It's unlikely that it's the nitrate that's harming your plant. Plants use ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate as food, they're not like fish who find it toxic.

Do you have any form of fertiliser for that plant? Amazon sword plants need root tablets in the substrate to give them the nutrients they need to survive. If the leaves are going brown, that usually means it's not getting enough nutrients.

Some plants, like java fern and anubias and floating plants can get nutrients directly out of the water. Others are not so good at doing that and need root tabs.

But to answer your actual question - best way to reduce nitrates is simply to do a water change. That nitrate level might be harming any fish or other animals you have in the tank.

 

[Sai Sauce]

Thank you so much about the plant! I guess I need root tabs for it. I only have a co2 lol. And how many percent of water should I change? 25% a day or?


Using My iPad and I Love Fishes!

 

[Masha]

How much you should change depends on how highly stocked your tank is, how much you feed, what filtration you have and so on.

Also, you may find that it's not a great idea to do a huge water change now, if you've not been doing that for a while. It's better to do weekly changes at the same % (whatever it is) than suddenly to do a big change, as fish will have adapted to the water conditions to some extent, and find a big change stressful.

I find aqadvisor very useful in calculating how much water needs to be changed, have a look: AqAdvisor - Intelligent Freshwater Tropical Fish Aquarium Stocking Calculator and Aquarium Tank/Filter Advisor

So if you've not been doing much in terms of water changes for a while, do a smallish one now, like 10% or 20%, maybe every 3 days or so, gradually increasing until you are at your target %. Then you can do that % change once a week.

Does that make sense?