"Cardman" wrote in message
...
I would say at a crude guess that my Nitrate levels increase by about
50ppm per week, which is why I cannot leave it for more than a couple
of weeks without a good water change, when algae growth is explosive
if I do not change the water in that time.

Wow, an increase of 50ppm per week nitrate is huge :-)

Add lots of plants :-) The aim really is to balance the fish load with
plant load
so hopefully the nitrate can be utilised by the plants.

You can then spend time admiring the aquarium rather than slaving over it.

I prefer to have a deficit of nitrate, so I can add it when necessary
together with other
nutrients. That sure beats excess nitrates and phosphates which lead to
excess algae.

I have to add nitrates twice weekly to keep
the level at around 10ppm. Even if I dose the tank to 20ppm, three to
four
days later, it's back down to zero. The plants definitely have something
to
with this. I suspect (but don't know for sure) that there may also be
some
amount of anaerobic nitrate reduction happening in my canister filter
and possible in parts of the substrate.

Sounds like you need some more fish, where my White Mollies make for a
good example of the type that would be good at Nitrate production.

No No No :-) Don't do it :-) Add nitrate by hand rather than adding fish.

If you add fish you can end up with a extremely finely balanced system where
a single
nutrient deficiency can result in an algal bloom.

Only my opinion of course, but I like to keep the tank under *my* control,
rather than
attempting to correct imbalances caused by excess fish load.


Graham.