Plants And Nitrate

[Miamisportsfan45]

I have a 50 gallon tank aquarium which I'm going to be using for tropical fish but right now, I only have goldfish. I was wondering how many plants would be best to get my nitrate levels down to a safe level? I don't want to have to change the water so much, unless I need to. And I was also wondering, do the bulbs that turn into plants eat nitrate or are they just for decorations? And how much gravel would be needed for these bulbs to actually grow and live and the roots to sink into them? Thanks for your help and it's all greatly appreciated.

 

[mr130gallon]

well, you need to do weekly or twice as big biweekly water changes regardless if you have plants or not, i have plants, but still do weekly water changes, you may be able to do smaller water changes every week, but not by a huge amount.

 

[Miamisportsfan45]

Do you know anything about the bulbs? And thanks for the info.

 

[bitteraspects]

how many goldfish do you have?

again, i think you are addressing the issue indirectly.

the nitrate problem is due to the extremely high bioload of the goldfish. while live plants are absolutely a great way to combat nitrates, the biological filter will need to first be able to handle the bioload.

with plants, the more the better. the plats you will be able to keep will be determined by your set up.
i willing to take a shot in the dark, and assume you have a pretty basic "low light" set up. with this type of tank, your options are limited to mosses and ferns, and a couple of low light plants like anubias, crypts, etc.

 

[mr130gallon]

Do you know anything about the bulbs? And thanks for the info.

im sorry, i usually go for stem plants, so i dont know anything about bulbs, wish i could help

 

[OldMan47]

Fast growing plants that remove large amounts of nitrate can be used to reduce the amount of water change that ia needed. The minimum 30% change advocated by so many people is really based on having no plants but having a moderate fish biological load. Although goldfish produce a lot of solid waste, they only produce typical amounts of ammonia for a fish their size. Size becomes quite important because goldfish are very big fish for an aquarium. More plants means less water needs to be changed, up to a point. I run some of my heavier planted tanks with only a 10% weekly water change while others get as much as a 50% change. The cheap bulbs that you can get at Walmart have been a definite disappointment for me. The plants that actually grew, which were a small percentage of the bulbs that I tried, did not grow vigorously in my tanks, so they absorbed very little in terms of nitrogen.

 

[Miamisportsfan45]

I only got two goldfish in my 50 gallon tank to get the beneficial bacteria started in my filter awhile. But once I no longer have these comet goldfish, when there life span is over, I'll be setting up a tropical fish aquarium.

And yeah, the bulbs are the ones I got at Wal-Mart. Just got one, and dropped it in there to see how it fares.

 

[llamalord305]

Some people would say that tank is too small. And you do know goldfish can like 10-20 years?

 

[Miamisportsfan45]

Some people would say that tank is too small. And you do know goldfish can like 10-20 years?

Really? Wow. I never knew that. Thanks, though. I wanted to set up a tropical aquarium... I only was using the two goldfish to cycle the tank, while being in an aquarium loaded with plants.

 

[Truck]

Its big enough for 2-3 fancy goldfish providing you have external filtration, the plants will help a little too.

 

[Miamisportsfan45]

I'm having filter troubles, now. I made another topic about that though.