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#1
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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 Now, I have a 14 watt 5500K spiral compact screwed into the hood (it's a LOT of light), a nanofilter, and the UGF has been replaced by 2" of fluorite.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 '__ |
#2
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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 |
#3
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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 |
#4
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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 |
#5
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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 '__ |
#6
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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. -- 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 |
#7
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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 |
#8
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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 |
#9
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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 |
#10
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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 '__ |
#11
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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 |
#12
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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 '__ |
#13
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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 |
#14
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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 |
#15
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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 '__ |
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