Nitrates Bottomed Out

[Woody83]

The long history is here. (Begining to this point.)

In short, 30g planted, 65w, no co2.

Ammonia - 0, Nitrite - 0, Ph - 7.8, Nitrate - 0, water change 50% every two weeks.

Nitrate was 40+ before we got a bunch of plants. Some are growing nicely, some are not doing too hot. At least a couple have doubled in size. I have some pics below, but they're not so good, I was in a hurry, the water isn't really as murcky as it appears in the photos.

All fish look happy and snails have gotten huge.

Some green spot algae appeared first. Cleans off easy enough. Then some brown algae on a couple of the plants. Then the red ludwigia (which was doing quite well) took a turn for the worst & might be gone soon.

This prompted me to do a water test where I saw nitrates bottomed out. I'd prefer not to go into CO2 yet. Is there something I can try first? Flourish Excel?

Longer than I wanted, thanks for your help.

 

[rkilling1]

A source of Carbon is always benefical to a planted tank, but having your NO3's bottom out is not going to be helped by Carbon (It will increase the rate in which your NO3's are being used). You will have to dose fertilizers to increase your NO3's.

A lot of us dose dry ferts from gregwatson.com.

Here is a good read for non-CO2 tanks:

http://www.barrreport.com/articles/433-non-co2-methods.html

 

[Woody83]

I have no problem dosing ferts. It's more of a matter of what and how much. I remember reading that article and about 75% of it going over my head. But I'll give it another read.

Thanks for the link.

 

[Purrbox]

If you get some dry ferts (Greg Watson is a great source) then you can use Chuck Gadd's Calculator to help you figure how much to dose of each to reach your targets. Based on the problems you described you'll need to dose everything (Nitrates, Phosphates, Potassium, and Traces).

 

[gu2high]

I may be wrong about it, but if Ammonia - 0, Nitrite - 0, Ph - 7.8, Nitrate - 0, then I guess it is better to not do water change and don't vac gravel either. In this way, it may help to boost the nitrate. Please correct me if I was wrong.

 

[Woody83]

From the start had I Nitrate from the tap of 20+, so I'm thinking more water changes, more fish load, or dose.