Where's the nitrate?

There is little to no nitrate present in my three tanks. I consider all
three of them to be fully cycled. Shouldn't there be a small amount of
nitrate? Are the plants using up what little nitrate there is?

tank 1: 20 gallon freshwater, ammonia 0, nitrite 0. nitrate 0, ph 7.6.
alkalinity med/low. contains one 2.5 inch tetra, one 2.5 inch blue
gourami, one 3.5 inch kuhli loach, one 4 inch gold algae eater, one 1.5
inch peppered cory, two 1.5 inch peppered corys, 5 small plants.

tank 2: 20 gallon freshwater, ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 0, ph 7.6,
alkalinity med., contains four 1.5 inch platys, two 1.25 inch fancy
guppies, seven 1 inch neon tetras, two 1.25 inch peppered corys, one 2
inch gold algae eater, four small plants.

10 gallon freshwater, contains (temporarily) two 5 inch peacock eels,
ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate trace (less than 2.5 but more than 0) PH
7.2, alkalinity med/low.

Thanks
Karen

"Karen Garza" wrote in message
news
There is little to no nitrate present in my three tanks. I consider all
three of them to be fully cycled. Shouldn't there be a small amount of
nitrate? Are the plants using up what little nitrate there is?

tank 1: 20 gallon freshwater, ammonia 0, nitrite 0. nitrate 0, ph 7.6.
alkalinity med/low. contains one 2.5 inch tetra, one 2.5 inch blue
gourami, one 3.5 inch kuhli loach, one 4 inch gold algae eater, one 1.5
inch peppered cory, two 1.5 inch peppered corys, 5 small plants.

tank 2: 20 gallon freshwater, ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 0, ph 7.6,
alkalinity med., contains four 1.5 inch platys, two 1.25 inch fancy
guppies, seven 1 inch neon tetras, two 1.25 inch peppered corys, one 2
inch gold algae eater, four small plants.

10 gallon freshwater, contains (temporarily) two 5 inch peacock eels,
ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate trace (less than 2.5 but more than 0) PH
7.2, alkalinity med/low.

Thanks
Karen

Karen

There should be varying amounts of Nitrate even in fully cycled tanks.
Plants DO reduce Nitrate, but I notice tank three on your list doesn't have
any plants?

Do you do regular waterchanges? Depending how often and how much water you
change, you may see only small amount of Nitrate.

Clive

"Karen Garza" wrote in message
news
There is little to no nitrate present in my three tanks. I consider all
three of them to be fully cycled. Shouldn't there be a small amount of
nitrate? Are the plants using up what little nitrate there is?

Seems unlikely. Your fish load isn't all that high (except for the
third tank), but you don't have that many plants either. In the
first instance, I would suspect the test kit. Get another one
and try with that. Alternatively, your water changing regime
may be such that you are removing sufficient nitrate to get
below the detection threshold of your test kit. (Another brand
of test kit might help with that.) A (far out) possibility is that
you have anaerobic nitrate conversion to NO2 happening in
your substrate or your filter. (Apparently, that is happening in
most tanks to some degree, but not quickly enough to stay
on top of the nitrates altogether.)

Cheers,

Michi.

--
Michi Henning Ph: +61 4 1118-2700
ZeroC, Inc. http://www.zeroc.com

There should be varying amounts of Nitrate even in fully cycled tanks.
Plants DO reduce Nitrate, but I notice tank three on your list doesn't have
any plants?

Do you do regular waterchanges? Depending how often and how much water you
change, you may see only small amount of Nitrate.

Clive

No plants in tank 3 because it is temporary for the eels, and eels
*dig* I tell you! I don't think plants would do well with the eels
always digging them up. I know eels require a much bigger tank and I
hope to accommodate them with a bigger tank within a few months. I may
add plants to tank 3 after the eels are moved out. It may then become a
fry nursery if needed for the platys or guppys.
As for water changes, I do a minimum of one 30% weekly water change and
gravel vac on all three tanks. Sometimes I do an extra 30% water change
mid week. Most of the fish seem to love the water changes.
Tanks 1 and 3 have penguin biowheel filters and tank 2 has an older back
hang-on filter and a UGF. I prefer the biowheels.
I also forgot to mention that there is driftwood in tanks 1 and 2, and
there is a coconut shell cave in each of tanks 1 and 3. One of the eels
has taken up residence in the coconut shell and only digs in the
substrate occasionally. The other eel just digs in the substrate and
ignores the coconut.


Karen

Michi Henning wrote:

"Karen Garza" wrote in message
news
There is little to no nitrate present in my three tanks. I consider all
three of them to be fully cycled. Shouldn't there be a small amount of
nitrate? Are the plants using up what little nitrate there is?


Seems unlikely. Your fish load isn't all that high (except for the
third tank), but you don't have that many plants either. In the
first instance, I would suspect the test kit. Get another one
and try with that. Alternatively, your water changing regime
may be such that you are removing sufficient nitrate to get
below the detection threshold of your test kit. (Another brand
of test kit might help with that.) A (far out) possibility is that
you have anaerobic nitrate conversion to NO2 happening in
your substrate or your filter. (Apparently, that is happening in
most tanks to some degree, but not quickly enough to stay
on top of the nitrates altogether.)

Cheers,

Michi.


Okay, I think I may have to try a new test kit then. I suppose it's
possible that I am removing the nitrate with my water changes. I do a
minimum of one weekly 30% water change and gravel vac. Sometimes I do an
extra 30% water change each week. I didn't think it was too much water
change, but I could be wrong. Wouldn't it be possible (maybe even
preferable) to even do a daily 50% water change if the fish are used to it?
Thanks

Karen

"Karen Garza" wrote in message
hlink.net...
Michi Henning wrote:

"Karen Garza" wrote in message
news
There is little to no nitrate present in my three tanks. I consider all
three of them to be fully cycled. Shouldn't there be a small amount of
nitrate? Are the plants using up what little nitrate there is?


Seems unlikely. Your fish load isn't all that high (except for the
third tank), but you don't have that many plants either. In the
first instance, I would suspect the test kit. Get another one
and try with that. Alternatively, your water changing regime
may be such that you are removing sufficient nitrate to get
below the detection threshold of your test kit. (Another brand
of test kit might help with that.) A (far out) possibility is that
you have anaerobic nitrate conversion to NO2 happening in
your substrate or your filter. (Apparently, that is happening in
most tanks to some degree, but not quickly enough to stay
on top of the nitrates altogether.)

Cheers,

Michi.


Okay, I think I may have to try a new test kit then. I suppose it's
possible that I am removing the nitrate with my water changes. I do a
minimum of one weekly 30% water change and gravel vac. Sometimes I do an
extra 30% water change each week. I didn't think it was too much water
change, but I could be wrong. Wouldn't it be possible (maybe even
preferable) to even do a daily 50% water change if the fish are used to
it?
Thanks

Karen


it is likely that your weekly 30% water changes reduce your nitrate below
measurable levels. I do weekly 50% water changes in my heavily planted 77g
tank and dry dose ferts twice a week including a 1/2 tsp of KN03 (nitrate)
and I still don't measure much nitrate. Your plants will also be using up
nitrate. I wouldn't worry about it, seems everything is running o.k for you.
As far as daily 50% water changes are concerned you could do that if you had
the time but why bother. You fish in fact become accustomed to the schedule
of water changes you keep them in. To suddenly go from 30% weekly to 50%
daily could prove harmful. You could gradually increase you water changes
but 30% weekly is more than what most do.

Rick

Rick wrote:

it is likely that your weekly 30% water changes reduce your nitrate below
measurable levels. I do weekly 50% water changes in my heavily planted 77g
tank and dry dose ferts twice a week including a 1/2 tsp of KN03 (nitrate)
and I still don't measure much nitrate. Your plants will also be using up
nitrate. I wouldn't worry about it, seems everything is running o.k for you.
As far as daily 50% water changes are concerned you could do that if you had
the time but why bother.

Thanks for the info :-) I had read that there should be some nitrate in
the water, so I was a bit concerned that there isn't any nitrate in my
tanks. But if it doesn't matter then I won't worry about it.
I don't plan on doing daily 50% water changes. I was just wondering if
that was possible. I thought it was. I'll stick to my once or twice per
week water changes.
Thanks
Karen

I am very surprised that you have any trouble with so much water
change. I change 20% once a week in my 5 tanks. My tanks are heavily
populated. They are planted and filtered, but I am lazy about filter
maintenance unless the water is coming over the wrong spillway. I
worry more about biological health than particles and trust the tanks
to keep a healthy balance. I also keep a variety of scavengers
including Plecos, Clown Loaches and Siamese Algae Eaters in all my
tanks. I only feed Tetra flakes. I keep the temperatures between 78
and 80 degrees. I run air stones to promote circulation.

Not suggesting a change in your procedure, just wanted to note that
other procedures work also.

On Thu, 22 Jan 2004 04:36:45 GMT, Karen Garza
wrote:



Rick wrote:

it is likely that your weekly 30% water changes reduce your nitrate below
measurable levels. I do weekly 50% water changes in my heavily planted 77g
tank and dry dose ferts twice a week including a 1/2 tsp of KN03 (nitrate)
and I still don't measure much nitrate. Your plants will also be using up
nitrate. I wouldn't worry about it, seems everything is running o.k for you.
As far as daily 50% water changes are concerned you could do that if you had
the time but why bother.

Thanks for the info :-) I had read that there should be some nitrate in
the water, so I was a bit concerned that there isn't any nitrate in my
tanks. But if it doesn't matter then I won't worry about it.
I don't plan on doing daily 50% water changes. I was just wondering if
that was possible. I thought it was. I'll stick to my once or twice per
week water changes.
Thanks
Karen

"Karen Garza" wrote in message
hlink.net...

Okay, I think I may have to try a new test kit then. I suppose it's
possible that I am removing the nitrate with my water changes. I do a
minimum of one weekly 30% water change and gravel vac. Sometimes I do an
extra 30% water change each week. I didn't think it was too much water
change, but I could be wrong. Wouldn't it be possible (maybe even
preferable) to even do a daily 50% water change if the fish are used to it?

I don't think that's a good idea at all. 50% water change daily is more likely
to leave you with a lot of dead fish than not. Despite all the chlorine
removers
and water conditioners, water changes to impose stress on fish. Every time
you change water, you also change the ion balance in the tank, forcing the
fish to adapt. There is only so much change they can cope with.
Too-frequent water changes tend to result in fish that mysteriously get
diseases such as fungal infections, fin rot, or other bacterial maladies.
The stress weakens the fish to the point where bacteria or fungi that
are always present (and normally pose no problems) take hold
and end up being fatal.

I'd limit water changes to no more than 25% weekly (assuming a
working biological filter). Step one is to work out whether your
nitrate readings are real or not. If they are, check out ammonia
and nitrite, which would be the suspects next in line. At any rate,
zero nitrate (assuming that is a correct reading) is not a problem
at all for your fish. It can be a problem for your plants, which need
nitrogen to grow, and zero-nitrate tanks also tend to have algae
problems (thanks Tom for making me see the light! :-), but you
fish will be perfectly happy with zero nitrates.

But if your neons are dying, there is something wrong. It's a
matter of elimination to work out why...

Cheers,

Michi.

--
Michi Henning Ph: +61 4 1118-2700
ZeroC, Inc. http://www.zeroc.com

Michi Henning wrote:

I don't think that's a good idea at all. 50% water change daily is more likely
to leave you with a lot of dead fish than not. Despite all the chlorine
removers
and water conditioners, water changes to impose stress on fish. Every time
you change water, you also change the ion balance in the tank, forcing the
fish to adapt. There is only so much change they can cope with.
Too-frequent water changes tend to result in fish that mysteriously get
diseases such as fungal infections, fin rot, or other bacterial maladies.
The stress weakens the fish to the point where bacteria or fungi that
are always present (and normally pose no problems) take hold
and end up being fatal.

I'd limit water changes to no more than 25% weekly (assuming a
working biological filter). Step one is to work out whether your
nitrate readings are real or not. If they are, check out ammonia
and nitrite, which would be the suspects next in line. At any rate,
zero nitrate (assuming that is a correct reading) is not a problem
at all for your fish. It can be a problem for your plants, which need
nitrogen to grow, and zero-nitrate tanks also tend to have algae
problems (thanks Tom for making me see the light! :-), but you
fish will be perfectly happy with zero nitrates.

But if your neons are dying, there is something wrong. It's a
matter of elimination to work out why...

Cheers,

Michi.

Ah, this makes sense. I can see that it would definitely be stressfull
to the fish to do too many big water changes.
I suspect my nitrate test kit is wrong because my plants seem to be
growing, (and blooming) just fine. I have no algae and I have to add
algae wafers on occasion to keep the gold algae eaters happy. Tanks 1
and 3 have penguine biowheel filters and tank 2 has UGF, so I think we
have the biofilters covered. So maybe I will gradually cut back on my
water changes a bit. I'll try just one per week 30% water change and see
how that goes. If needed I can cut it back to one smaller water change
per week. I don't wnat to drastically alter my routine because I don't
want to stress the fish too much.
The only neons that have died are the one that died before I even got it
in the tank, and the one that the larger tetra (I still don't know what
kind of tetra) violently munched in tank 1. That tetra didn't simply
bite into the neon, he munched down about half of the neon in one big
bite then violently shook the neon side to side. Then he spit the neon
out and did it again. I think the neon was dead after the first attack
because he just sort of floated in space for about a second before the
second atack. I immediately removed all the remaining neons and put them
in tank 2.

Karen