Nitrate supplementation - right solution for my tank?
 

I mentioned in an earlier thread that I redid my 2gal betta hex as a
"real" planted tank. Before I had Mayaca and Rotala indica growing on
ambient sunlight and UGF. Shoulda left well enough alone, but I wanted
to grow something in the foreground. Not enough light was making it
past the tall stem plants and I was in the process of killing a banana
lily after killing some nice dwarf Sagittaria.

Now, I have a 14 watt 5500K spiral compact screwed into the hood (it's a
LOT of light), a nanofilter, and the UGF has been replaced by 2" of
fluorite. After the changes, the Rotala indica started growing 1/2" a
day, two tiny crypt offshoots that I scavenged from the "big" 5gal tank
have put out new leaves, and the banana lily seems to be keeping its
leaves. Current supplements are Kent Botanica iron, trace elements, and
K, and Flourish Excel. All are dosed as on the bottle and iron tests at
0.25 ppm chelated iron.

However, I've started getting cyanobacter on plants, sparse green fuzz
algae on the glass, and the Mayaca that was doing fine before refuses to
grow and is going brown. I just did my usual water change routine, and
to my surprise nitrates are only 2 ppm now. My Mardel test strips led
me to believe there was more, but I just got an accurate Seachem test
and the tapwater has only 3-4 ppm at the moment. I use half tap and
half RO or rainwater so I'm actually adding very little nitrate with
water changes. I don't know phosphate levels at the moment - no kit for
that one.

I'm rather amazed that a betta in 2 gallons isn't putting out enough
ammonia for more plant growth, but that seems to be the case. This was
a 50% water change, so I was only at 4 ppm before it.

So...

Earlier this month when someone else had BGA and it was diagnosed as
nitrate deficiency. Is adding nitrate what I need to do now? I have
cleaned all the algae out of the tank, of course. I would prefer not to
black the tank out if it's not absolutely necessary.

I know CO2 is also an issue for plants vs. algae, but trying to balance
CO2 and pH in a 2 gallon tank seems like a really good way to either
kill my betta or entirely fill the tank with C02 equipment. Flourish
Excel will have to do.

I'd appreciate any feedback before I add nitrates, in case there's
something I've overlooked.

--
__ Elaine T __
__' http://eethomp.com/fish.html '__

Why not get a female betta to add to the tank? It will make the whole
system more interesting and you'll get to see more natural betta
behavior plus it will double your nitrate output. You win all around
that way.

-Daniel

In message .com,
dfreas writes
Why not get a female betta to add to the tank? It will make the whole
system more interesting and you'll get to see more natural betta
behavior plus it will double your nitrate output. You win all around
that way.

Don't male/female bettas only come together for mating and then go their
own separate ways? I'd understood that having a pair together in a small
tank was a recipe for disaster...
--
sophie

Well I guess I should have read a bit more about bettas before making
the suggestion. I did a little research just now and from what I can
see they can be kept together but not always with perfect results. Sort
of a ymmv situation. Probably not a good idea to just throw one in and
hope for the best. But I do think a second fish would solve the problem
better than adding nitrates directly. Maybe a couple small corys or
kuhlis would do nicely. Or if that's too much load perhaps one of the
pl*co strains that don't grow much...I've always liked clown pl*cos and
they wouldn't outgrow a tank this size I don't think. Also a pl*co
would immediately solve the algae problem which would increase the
available nitrates for the rest of the tank.

-Daniel

dfreas wrote:
Why not get a female betta to add to the tank? It will make the whole
system more interesting and you'll get to see more natural betta
behavior plus it will double your nitrate output. You win all around
that way.

-Daniel

That's an interesting thought. Thanks. Do you think a 2 gallon is
really big enough for the female to be safe if there is some aggression?
The hex shape doesn't give much length for swimming. I do have a
community tank where I could put her if things go badly, though.

I had also thought of adding a couple of Otocinclus since there's some
soft green algae now.

--
__ Elaine T __
__' http://eethomp.com/fish.html '__

Don't male/female bettas only come together for mating and then go their
own separate ways? I'd understood that having a pair together in a small
tank was a recipe for disaster...

Totally unpredictable. They may get along fine or one may beat up, shred
or even kill the other. I see all three with about equal frequency.

--
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That's an interesting thought. Thanks. Do you think a 2 gallon is
really big enough for the female to be safe if there is some aggression?
The hex shape doesn't give much length for swimming. I do have a
community tank where I could put her if things go badly, though.

I have a pair in a 1 gallon fishbowl. Been there since xmas.


--
Need Mercedes parts ? - http://parts.mbz.org
http://www.mbz.org | Mercedes Mailing lists: http://lists.mbz.org
633CSi 250SE/C 300SD | Killies, killi.net, Crypts, aquaria.net
1970 280SE, 72 280SE | Old wris****ches http://watches.list.mbz.org

Not to be difficult but, dosing nitrates to from 0 to 10ppm didn't seem
to help me at all, although your situation may be different and it did
rule out one possibility. I don't know what the critical level is so I
don't want to go any higher than that 10 ppm for fear of poisioning the
fish. Also, my common pleco doesn't touch the BGA. Other types of
plecos may, I dunno. I haven't heard of any fish that actually eat the
stuff.
I'm not sure if that helped any. It doesn't seem killing BGA is really
a problem. Keeping it from growing again seems to be the challenge.
my aquarium page, info and pics at:
www.geocities.com/spiral_72/Spirals_page.html

I didn't mean to suggest a pleco would eat BGA - I was refering to the
other algae Elaine mentioned, the "sparse green fuzz." Otos would work
just as well - whatever your personal preference for algae eating fish
happens to be is fine. The BGA problem will solve itself when
everything else is fixed.

-Daniel

spiral_72 wrote:
Not to be difficult but, dosing nitrates to from 0 to 10ppm didn't seem
to help me at all, although your situation may be different and it did
rule out one possibility. I don't know what the critical level is so I
don't want to go any higher than that 10 ppm for fear of poisioning the
fish. Also, my common pleco doesn't touch the BGA. Other types of
plecos may, I dunno. I haven't heard of any fish that actually eat the
stuff.
I'm not sure if that helped any. It doesn't seem killing BGA is really
a problem. Keeping it from growing again seems to be the challenge.
my aquarium page, info and pics at:
www.geocities.com/spiral_72/Spirals_page.html

I don't know of anything that eats it. I'm going to LFS to day to grab
some nitrate fertilizer and also a posphorus kit if they have one.

One difference between our setups is I think I have a lot more plants
per gallon (inventing a new measurement here) than you do, unless your
tank has changed a lot since the shot on your website.

--
__ Elaine T __
__' http://eethomp.com/fish.html '__

As a side note I've had tanks that continually tested 0ppm for nitrates
but had enormous amounts of plant growth. They were heavily populated
south american cichlid tanks with about three inches of hornwort
covering the top of the tank. Ammonia got eaten up as soon as it was
produced and those guys produced a lot of it. So I don't expect there
is a perfect number for nitrates out there - I always keep adding
plants until it reads zero consistently and I've never had a problem
with nitrogen defficiency.

-Daniel

dfreas wrote:
As a side note I've had tanks that continually tested 0ppm for nitrates
but had enormous amounts of plant growth. They were heavily populated
south american cichlid tanks with about three inches of hornwort
covering the top of the tank. Ammonia got eaten up as soon as it was
produced and those guys produced a lot of it. So I don't expect there
is a perfect number for nitrates out there - I always keep adding
plants until it reads zero consistently and I've never had a problem
with nitrogen defficiency.

-Daniel

I've never had a problem before either, but 1 betta in a 2 gal isn't
very heavily populated as far as ammonia production goes. I usually
keep a lot of fish in my tanks and my experience has been much like yours.

I'm also going by Tom Barr and Richard Sexton's observations that BGA is
a nitrogen fixer. It makes a lot of sense to me that if other nutrients
are good and nitrogen is relatively low, conditions are ideal for BGA.

--
__ Elaine T __
__' http://eethomp.com/fish.html '__

In article . com,
spiral_72 wrote:
Not to be difficult but, dosing nitrates to from 0 to 10ppm didn't seem
to help me at all, although your situation may be different and it did
rule out one possibility. I don't know what the critical level is so I
don't want to go any higher than that 10 ppm for fear of poisioning the
fish. Also, my common pleco doesn't touch the BGA. Other types of
plecos may, I dunno. I haven't heard of any fish that actually eat the
stuff.
I'm not sure if that helped any. It doesn't seem killing BGA is really
a problem. Keeping it from growing again seems to be the challenge.

If you dosed to 10ppm what do they measure at 1, 2, 5 days after?

Have you tried changing LOTS of water every day.

--
Need Mercedes parts ? - http://parts.mbz.org
http://www.mbz.org | Mercedes Mailing lists: http://lists.mbz.org
633CSi 250SE/C 300SD | Killies, killi.net, Crypts, aquaria.net
1970 280SE, 72 280SE | Old wris****ches http://watches.list.mbz.org

I have added some plants just for that reason. Actually, they look
really good! When I get paid this week I hope to add a couple more. I
guess I need to update the pic though.

Wow, Elaine... Those are some really nice tanks! I especially like the
lighting you have. Please let me know how the nitrates work and what
your phosphates are.
My nitrates do drop about 2 points after a couple days. I originally
assumed the plants were absorbing it, but I'm not so sure. If I let the
tank alone the nitrates will drop close to zero again after about
ummmm, 7 days. As far as I know the only two things to rid your water
of nitrates is, new water, or plants.
Anyways, I'm not gonna dominate someone else's post with my problems
again..... I'll be silent. Good luck!
my aquarium page, info and pics at:
www.geocities.com/spiral_72/Spirals_page.html

spiral_72 wrote:
I have added some plants just for that reason. Actually, they look
really good! When I get paid this week I hope to add a couple more. I
guess I need to update the pic though.

Wow, Elaine... Those are some really nice tanks! I especially like the
lighting you have. Please let me know how the nitrates work and what
your phosphates are.
My nitrates do drop about 2 points after a couple days. I originally
assumed the plants were absorbing it, but I'm not so sure. If I let the
tank alone the nitrates will drop close to zero again after about
ummmm, 7 days. As far as I know the only two things to rid your water
of nitrates is, new water, or plants.

Actually, there are anaerobic bacteria that can reduce nitrate all the
way back to nitrogen gas. They sometimes grow in deeper layers of the
substrate if there is low oxygen, and the sal****er varieties are
considered necessary for maintaining a healthy reef tank. Problem is,
in freshwater, anaerobic areas in the substrate can also grow sulfur
reducing bacteria that convert harmless sulfates into toxic H2S.

There's a ton of old denitrification info on the Krib because many years
ago we were trying to grow those bacteria in special filters and slowly
dripping coils. I even found my post of an awful experience with a
commercial denitrator 11 years ago.
http://www.thekrib.com/Chemistry/nitrate.html#4 This is why I'm such an
advocate of graven vacuuming even in planted tanks.

So...yes, there are other processes that can remove nitrates from an
aquarium. If you think your nitrates are disappearing too fast, start
gravel vacuuming deeply anywhere there isn't a plant with roots that are
oxygenating the substrate. Patches under bogwood and rocks are
particularly prone to go anaerobic. If you smell a "rotten egg" smell,
you hit a patch of anaerobic substrate and will need to change some water.

Anyways, I'm not gonna dominate someone else's post with my problems
again..... I'll be silent. Good luck!
my aquarium page, info and pics at:
www.geocities.com/spiral_72/Spirals_page.html

Thanks! The tanks are running with 14 watt 5500K spiral compact
screw-ins in the hoods. 2 bulbs over the 5 gal and one over the 2 gal.
The betta tank is going to look really cool once the baby's tears for
the foreground and Alternanthera reineckii (Telanthera rosefolia) for
some contrast come in.

I'll post on the nitrates and BGA once the tank settles down and I know
what the effect is going to be. Nobody in town carries a FW phosphate
kit so that's going to have to wait until I need enough stuff to be
worth mail ordering again.

--
__ Elaine T __
__' http://eethomp.com/fish.html '__