Nitrate Control

[Kedar]

Can something else be grown in an aquarium just to absorb the nutrients
from the water ..like bamboo, wheat grass, anything which grows roots
fast enough to absorb some nutrients .. i may be thinking loud here but
the general idea is without planting anything in the aquarium is there
a easy way to remove nitrates apart from 20 % weekly water change.

Thanks
Kedar

[carlrs]

Kedar wrote:
> Can something else be grown in an aquarium just to absorb the nutrients
> from the water ..like bamboo, wheat grass, anything which grows roots
> fast enough to absorb some nutrients .. i may be thinking loud here but
> the general idea is without planting anything in the aquarium is there
> a easy way to remove nitrates apart from 20 % weekly water change.
>
> Thanks
> Kedar

Plants are one of the best ways of controlling nitrates in freshwater
aquaria.
But you do not seem to want to go in this direction.
A thicker layer of coarse gravel utilizing a "void space" called a
plenum is often used for Nitrate removal can be used in freshwater
aquariums. These are not to be confused with under gravel filters.
Another thought is prevention; Besides water changes, make sure you do
not have a build up of organic "mulm" in your gravel or even filter. I
have seen many a customers aquarium where nitrates are a problem where
they have large organic build up in there canister filter, wet dry
filter or gravel. A common mistake of persons with canister filters or
wet dry filters is to assume because of their large capacity to not
rinse the media often enough.
When you do change water try and vacuum in areas of any organic build
up .

Another way to prevent nitrates is thru proper feeding; Do Not over
feed and just as important, feed quality fish foods with quality
proteins made up of amino acids from easily digestible sources such as
white fish meal and vegetable sources such as spirulina algae. For
flake foods I prefer Omega, HBH, Ocean Nutrition, & Spirulina 20.

For more information about the nitrogen cycle:
http://aquarium-nitrogen-cycle.blogspot.com/

Carl

[Köi-Lö]

"Kedar" > wrote in message
ups.com...
> Can something else be grown in an aquarium just to absorb the nutrients
> from the water ..like bamboo, wheat grass, anything which grows roots
> fast enough to absorb some nutrients .. i may be thinking loud here but
> the general idea is without planting anything in the aquarium is there
> a easy way to remove nitrates apart from 20 % weekly water change.

The water changes remove more than just nitrates. They remove all the
dissolved solids in the water. One of the easiest plants to grow in a tank
is Water Lettuce. Fish love to spawn in it's roots and it does removes
pollutants.
--
KL....
Frugal ponding since 1995.
My Pond & Aquarium Pages:
http://tinyurl.com/9do58
~~~~ }<((((*> ~~~ }<{{{{(ö> ~~~~ }<((((({*>

[swarvegorilla]

"Kedar" > wrote in message
ups.com...
> Can something else be grown in an aquarium just to absorb the nutrients
> from the water ..like bamboo, wheat grass, anything which grows roots
> fast enough to absorb some nutrients .. i may be thinking loud here but
> the general idea is without planting anything in the aquarium is there
> a easy way to remove nitrates apart from 20 % weekly water change.
>
> Thanks
> Kedar
>

This practise is known as 'aqua-ponics'
or something spelt like that
anyway, yes it's an ancient technology and there is prob more written about
it in actual food fish production than pets.
Wack it into google and theres thousands of sites, forums and documents out
there.
More commercial than hobby tho.
For hobbyists, duckweed and taro are 2 plants with the capacity to remove
nitrate en mass in my experience.
duckweed by rapid multiplication (smallest flowering plant with pop doubling
time of 24 hours!!!) and taro by storing the excess sugars away in it's
root.
taro needs a pond really and direct sunlight and duckweed can play havoc
with some filters and needs to be manually removed to actually 'remove' the
nitrates from the water...... this can be a problem when fish eat it
first!! Sometimes I have to resort to floating fry saver style holding pens
just to ensure I have a good sized parent population in the tank!
Anything growing tho takes out trace nutrients and stuff, this stuff is
usually replaced in small amounts during partial water changes, so you may
find you will need to add trace nutrients into your aquarium to keep plants
growing quicker than algae. Algae will outpace most plants in water that has
had most of the trace nutrients (really anything but nitrates and
phosphates) removed as a result of plant growth.
A few other things that I have tried have been monsterio delicio, mangroves,
potato, sweet potato, hydroponic lettuce......

For it to really be worth it you really need a good amount of water to play
with, if it's outside or in a greenhouse and ya have free sun then it all
starts to fit together!
Small scale it's amusing, and there really are a lot of houseplants that can
be trained to drop a thirsty root into the aqurium. Most philodendrums work
pretty good actually if ya start them in a bucket first to get roots. But
it's kinda pointless as a save on the bother of water changing as ya have to
top up heaps more with plants charging away, espec ponds.