If you aim for 0 nitrates, what do you feed your plants?

[Spyro]

I do need a phosphate test. Not sure which one, the old Red Sea tests seem to be gone. Salifert I think was difficult to use last time I had one, have you tried API's? When I do monthly water changes (my former habit and on my hex tank my current habit), my pH is around 7.5 in the aquariums. I go to larger or more frequent water changes my fish will get used to 8. And they do, but it isn't prime for breeding corydoras or albino bristle nose.

Phosphates levels are easy:
If you have lots of algae growing on glass, plants, decorations, green water = you have high phosphate levels

If you don't have lots of algae blooming = your plants are using most of Phosphates and levels are OK

 

[Colin_T]

Hi levels of phosphate have been blamed for blue green algae outbreaks in natural waterways. Hence the reason a lot of companies that make laundry detergents no longer have phosphates in the detergent.

 

[StevenF]

I do need a phosphate test. Not sure which one, the old Red Sea tests seem to be gone. Salifert I think was difficult to use last time I had one, have you tried API's?

I did firstly the SAPI but it I found it hard to get aa good reading below 10ppm.. I found this. It is a little expensive but precise and easy to get an exact reding in after only a few minutes. No color chart.

if you have any other questions about dosing fertilizers let me know.

Phosphates levels are easy:
If you have lots of algae growing on glass, plants, decorations, green water = you have high phosphate levels

I have had a lot of algae issues over the years but it was never caused by too much phosphate or nitrates.. But I did have algae when I had low phosphates. But most of the time it was caused by deficiencies, low levels, of any one of the 14 nutrients plants need. In high tech aquarium some people dose 10ppm or more a week and don't have algae issues. Basically in aquariums if you had a nutrient deficiency Algae does very well and your plants won't grow. But when you have no nutrient deficiency plants grow but algae struggles. No one knows why.

 

[Alice B]

That's a pretty good link. I still need a test.

 

[Alice B]

Phosphates levels are easy:
If you have lots of algae growing on glass, plants, decorations, green water = you have high phosphate levels

If you don't have lots of algae blooming = your plants are using most of Phosphates and levels are OK

I have hardly any algae, which is why the algae eaters were after the red cyano. But I thought phosphate caused it. I think I was overfeeding, trying to feed the bottom feeders with flake. I seem to have cleared the problem up on my tank. Black cyano on the north Fort Worth tank, I'll have to have a look next week

 

[itiwhetu]

My plants eat fish poo

 

[Spyro]

I did firstly the SAPI but it I found it hard to get aa good reading below 10ppm.. I found this. It is a little expensive but precise and easy to get an exact reding in after only a few minutes. No color chart.

if you have any other questions about dosing fertilizers let me know.

I have had a lot of algae issues over the years but it was never caused by too much phosphate or nitrates.. But I did have algae when I had low phosphates. But most of the time it was caused by deficiencies, low levels, of any one of the 14 nutrients plants need. In high tech aquarium some people dose 10ppm or more a week and don't have algae issues. Basically in aquariums if you had a nutrient deficiency Algae does very well and your plants won't grow. But when you have no nutrient deficiency plants grow but algae struggles. No one knows why.

If you have high nitrates and phosphates + source of light = you will have algae bloom.
You can't cheat death, taxes and algae bloom in above conditions.
You might test water and it will show low phosphates. That's only because algae will try and gobble up as much Nitrates and Phosphates as it possibly can and store it in cells for later.
But the reason for algae bloom in the first place is abundance of nitrates and phosphates available to it, allowing it to bloom. (same goes for cyanobacteria)
It is the same with low nitrate or phosphate reading in heavily planted tank. The reason test shows low nitrates, etc isn't because there is little nitrates produced in the environment. Low reading is because plants are using a lot of the nitrates the tank produces thus appearing as low on the test.

I've also seen a lot of videos where people draw wrong conclusions from the readings about deficiencies about algae, etc, etc. due to lack of base knowledge on biological processes plants do and counter intuitive effects.

When thinking about plants one has to start at basic truths and draw conclusions from there.
All plants, from algae to lawn grass to trees use 1 of the 2 competing strategies:
1. Fast growing:
will try to out-compete by gobbling up as much resources as it can and grow as fast as it can.
Will often compensate for nutrient deficiencies by making poorer quality leaves, steams, try to grow even taller or faster to reach light/nutrients. Will store excess nutrients.
Lives fast and dies fast once abundance of nutrients is exhausted. (most algae belongs to this category, fast growing steam and floating plants, weeds, etc)
2. Slow growing:
Will try to out-compete by outlasting the fast growers. It will not compensate on structure and quality/health of leaves, steams, etc when faced with nutrient deficiency. It will store some nutrients and slow down growth rate in order to accumulate missing nutrients. If it has good balance of nutrients it will grow as fast as it can without compromising it's structure.
It will grow slow and it will be capable of surviving for long time when faced with lack of nutrients, access to light, etc. Long after fast growers have died down.
Your Anubias and Java Fern belong to this category.
I have Anubias and Java Fern and did few months of experiments on Nitrate uptake, etc (there is a thread on it, albeit derailed and unfinished due to, well internet forum).
If you only have Anubias and Java fern = you will have excess nitrates and phosphates (depending on the food you're adding) without dosing supplements..
If you dose Potassium and trace elements = plants will out-compete algae for nitrates and phosphates and you will have undetectable nitrate levels (depending on number of plants and stocking of course. Java Fern is pretty good at sucking up nitrates) and thus low algae growth.
I have to dose 14ppm Potassium, 1 ppm phosphates and 1mm trace elements every week to achieve 0 nitrate reading and almost no algae. (your system might require different dosage.

If you don't want to dose fertilizers:
Get fast growing plants to out-compete algae/cyano for nutrients as those plants will also compensate for nutrient deficiency while absorbing abundant nutrients, just like algae does.

GL

 

[Alice B]

I have Activate which contains phosphate and potash. And I have Envy, which contains comprehensive carbohydrate, vitamin, amino acid and polyunsaturated fatty acids for plants. Its list of trace reads like my vitamin bottles. I intend to stick with my java fern and anubias, I love them, they are easy, slow but strong growing and I have very little algae. no algae eater in the 29, a clown pleco eats little besides wood and fish food. Only my hex has plecos that eat algae and it has a anubias as tall as the tank. I have to feed algae pellets or cut them a slice of zucchini today. Gave them a couple leaves of spinach last week. While I have Activate and Envy, I haven't used them. except on the 55 and that was before I did its water change. 55 seems to have a little brown diatom growth but no algae otherwise, I think I beat the cyano.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I am curious as to how one goes about measuringmost of the macro and mircos ((trace elements) in ones tank. As far as I can tell most od us cannot do this for the majority of these things, This leaves (excuse the pun) us with how the plants look as the basic guidance.

My personal experience with breeding fish is that one cannot deviate for some parameters and succeed. A perfect example is snub nosing in plecos. In my early days working with zebra plecos snub nosing was an issue. The fish would not fully develop their head shape, Instead of the normal somewhat pointed or rounded form to their had, it appeared as if the front of the head had been cut off and was flat as a result. The big question was whether this had a genetic or other cause.

The debate went back and forh and I even used to send the very few snubbers I got over the years to a gal on the west coast doing bredding experivimant with snub nised zeberas looking for the answer. In the end tha cause was determined to be environmental. When zebras poriduse eggs and they are fertilized, the oitentia zebra us attached to the yolk sac this is inside the egg shell. The potential zebra needs to break though the shell. However, if the water if too hard it can make the shell harder, the result is the teeny guy inside has to put much harder to break out. Apparently this results in a flattening of the face as a time when it is most vulnerable. The result is a flat front of the head.

What the person to who I contributed a very few snubbers to discovered was that, if they bred, they produced healthy offspring which did not exhibit the snubbing. While the main cause of snubbing is a shell that is to hard, occasionally in even proper water params this problem may show up, albeit very infrequently. In such cases it is more a unique issue specific to that one individual as opposed to the water hardness. However, it was also confirmed that this condition actually happen to wild fish even though their water was fine for them.

I will admit that my early thinking on this was that once the babies were wigglers outside the shell and dad would keep them safely in the back of the cave, that this might be causing some of the kids to have their faces pressed against the back of the cave. I was right about the pressing part but compltely wrong about when this occurred. But I have had over 500 zebras born in my tanks over the years and maybe I got a total of 5 snub nosed individuals. I knew it was not a water parameter issue in my tanks.

 

[Alice B]

I tested phosphate, PO4 with seatest last night. The 55 has either brown diatom algae (which I think is what it is) or maybe a bit of reddish, only algae eater is my clown and he doesn't eat algae, so it doesn't look as nice as my 29. 55 has 0.5 mg of phosphate (per 5 ml sample) Nitrate between 15 and 20. pH 7.5. Stocking load about 20 guppies and a clown pleco about 4 inches long
I am not changing the water on it, partly because diatom blooms come from traces of nitrite, often in cycling. And partly because the 29 looks great.

The 29 has PO4 at 1 mg per 5 ml test vial, and nitrates at 40 ppm. I am going to do a water change on the 29, despite the fact that it looks great. Despite the fact that the pH is nearly 8, probably from the large water change the last time. Not sure how large a water change, I do have plants in their trying to use this up and only 6 small fish.

 

[Alice B]

I'm out of sugar for the CO2 generator, it's been out of CO2 for over a week, and I hung notebook paper on the back of the tank to see if brown diatom or red cyanobacteria. It's red. If the phosphates were higher I'd say phosphates. Nitrates aren't that high. And the plants aren't doing that well, I think I am missing something plants need to grow and outcompete cyano or algae. Going back upthread, then maybe find a hydroponics store

 

[StevenF]

'm out of sugar for the CO2 generator, it's been out of CO2 for over a week, and I hung notebook paper on the back of the tank to see if brown diatom or red cyanobacteria. It's red. If the phosphates were higher I'd say phosphates. Nitrates aren't that high. And the plants aren't doing that well, I think I am missing something plants need to grow and outcompete cyano or algae. Going back upthread, then maybe find a hydroponics store

YOur nitrate and phosphate levels are fine for plants so in all likelyhood you are short something if your plants are not looking good. your phaoplhate readings posted earlier were fine. and your nitrate is more then sufficient for plant growth. So you can elliminate nitrogen and phosphate.

 

[Alice B]

Check your tap water for nitrates.

You need to keep nitrates as low as possible for long term fish health. Ideally you want nitrates on 0ppm, and less than 20ppm at all times.
You should do water changes more often to keep the nitrates down.

Unless your tank is full of fast growing true aquatic plants and only has a few small fish in, and it gets lots of light, there is no point adding carbon dioxide (CO2) or large amounts of fertiliser. There is plenty of CO2 in the average aquarium and it is produced continuously by fish, filter bacteria, and it gets into the water from the atmosphere.

I wouldn't add any garden fertilisers to an aquarium containing fish, shrimp or snails.

Anubias are marsh plants that grow slowly underwater and won't do anything to control nitrates. Floating plants like Water Sprite, Duckweed and Salvinia all do a much better job at reducing nutrients in an aquarium.

I used and Iron based liquid aquarium plant fertiliser (Sera Florena) and clay in the gravel in my plant tanks, but they had lots of light.

I currently only have a few fish, and I have a significant amount of frogbit, some failing to thrive crypts of some kind, anubias that is ok, and my pothos fell apart in the tank only one full leaf and one sprouting leaf left. I do have 20 ppm nitrates in the tank and 5 of phosphates, but for now I don't want to take it to zero, I want trace elements. Sera Florena isn't available on Amazon at the moment. I can go to a fish store tomorrow and look for it, or Seachem Fluorish Iron? @StevenF you said I could ask about fertilizers. I'm asking. If I'm going to the fish store, last time I came home with something to kill cyanobacteria, I want my plants to do well. Still thinking about getting panda garras but they will have to be quarantined first.

 

[StevenF]

I want trace elements. Sera Florena isn't available on Amazon at the moment. I can go to a fish store tomorrow and look for it, or Seachem Fluorish Iron? @StevenF you said I could ask about fertilizers. I'm asking.

Why don't you send me a private message with your address. i can send you a sample of the micro I make for my tank based on the information I posted much earlier in the thread. I don't know of any good micro fertilizer on the market. Many have problems:

• many use sulfate ingredients that react with KH in the water and become unavailable to plants.
• Many don't have enough zinc.
• Many have iron gluconate or use iron EDTA these don't last long in an aquarium and the byproducts can react with Phosphate resulting in a phosphate deficiency.

i can provide a dry mix of ingredients I use were a 1ml dose per 10 gallons with enough to last 30 weeks in your 30 gallon or 20 Weeks in your 50 gallon.It will work in water with a PH of 8 or less with KH in the water. If it works I can provide instructions on how to make it.

 

[Alice B]

I got some stuff for temporary, but I doubt it is great. Sending a PM Flourish by Seachem, not the Excel. I have the Excel, not using, just plain Flourish, I potted my crypts and gave them 2 tabs. They had roots under the undergravel filter but looked iron deprived. Same plants in my 29, are doing great. I had an old package of CryptoPro, and put a tablet by the roots of the one in the 29. I did the same when I planted in the 55. Both tanks have undergravel filters. The 29 has higher nitrates and phosphates. I dunno. 29's look a lot better, but their tablet is also fresher, I only installed that U/g a month ago