# Nitrate Query



## mark4785 (6 Feb 2012)

Is there anything known as a healthy or optimum nitrate level for a planted aquarium?

The reason I ask this is because I maintain a planted aquarium with a nitrate level of 50-60 ppm after finding that a multitude of algaes (including cyanobacteria) grow at nitrate levels around 20 ppm. I was advised many times by planted-tank keepers to increase my nitrate levels; I responded to this and increased my nitrate level and now have excellent plant growth.

One potential draw back to this higher nitrate level is the fact that the disease known as hexamita/hole in the head has been attributed to high nitrate concentrations; many guides on the internet consider hexamita/HITH treatment to involve lowering nitrate levels among other things like reducing stressors.

I'd be grateful if somebody, with experience of keeping sensitive fishes, like Discus or the most sensitive Dwarf cichlids could indicate what sort of nitrate level I should be aiming for in my planted aquarium to keep BOTH the plants and fish healthy. I know 50-60 ppm suits the plants but what about the fish?!


Mark.


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## ceg4048 (7 Feb 2012)

I've never had this problem and I maintain high NO3 levels with discus, rams and variety of dwarf chiclids. I've had dwarf chiclids breed and raise young in high nitrate tanks as well. People blindly blame nitrate for everything without having any evidence. If high nitrate were to blame, wouldn't the occurrence of hexamita/HITH be higher in planted tanks which use eutrophic dosing schemes? Yet this is not the case. Fish are generally healthier in a planted high NO3 tank than they are in unplanted tanks.

Viruses, bacteria and spores are present in every tank whether we like it or not. Fish that get stressed and which have their immune system damaged by stress fall victim to these pathogens. But high NO3 does not stress fish at all, at least not the fish that we keep. Dirty water however does stress fish so you might consider regular use of a UV and an increase in your water change percentage and frequency.

Cheers,


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## mark4785 (7 Feb 2012)

ceg4048 said:
			
		

> I've never had this problem and I maintain high NO3 levels with discus, rams and variety of dwarf chiclids. I've had dwarf chiclids breed and raise young in high nitrate tanks as well. People blindly blame nitrate for everything without having any evidence. If high nitrate were to blame, wouldn't the occurrence of hexamita/HITH be higher in planted tanks which use eutrophic dosing schemes? Yet this is not the case. Fish are generally healthier in a planted high NO3 tank than they are in unplanted tanks.
> 
> Viruses, bacteria and spores are present in every tank whether we like it or not. Fish that get stressed and which have their immune system damaged by stress fall victim to these pathogens. But high NO3 does not stress fish at all, at least not the fish that we keep. Dirty water however does stress fish so you might consider regular use of a UV and an increase in your water change percentage and frequency.
> 
> Cheers,



My total ammonia is 0 ppm and nitrite is 0 ppm so stress isn't coming from those parameters. I do do a lot of plant re-arranging which I guess could cause a bit a stress, but I only re-arrange plants if I feel that they will die if I don't intervene. I have watched the male ram come towards my hand/arm whilst i'm re-arranging the plants or adding plants and even peck at one of my arm freckles mistaking for a pellet so I can only presume that they perceive me as intimidatory at times rather than a constant stressor.

The filter I use does have a UV but the UV component has broke so I'll get it replaced.

The only reason I am querying the nitrate is because there is NOTHING else to point the finger at in terms of what has caused my GBR to develop this hexamita/HITH unless there is some sort of genetic precursor in this fish for developing HITH/hexamita according to a diathesis stress model/explanation.

Edit: I agree that nitrate is probably not involved in causing the problem I've described as, have you have said, rams, including mine, have spawned in a high nitrate environment. Once the eggs had been deposited, the male ram consumed the eggs presumably because he was aware of the fact that my corydoras (catfish)  are nearby and will eat the eggs; presumably the corydoras could be a source of stress for GBR's when spawning?


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## roadmaster (8 Feb 2012)

I am on board with Clive with regard's to  KNO3 being possible contributer to problems with fishes BUT,, I believe there is large difference between nitrate levels from mineral salt's and nitrate levels as result of decaying organics,metabolic waste,  which is more a sign of poor maint .
Have  managed to keep more than a few cichlids healthy for years, in unplanted tank's along with loaches ,catfish,plecos, that are rough on plant's and the key was frequent water changes to keep metabolic input's from influencing the parameter's.
Had more trouble with blood worms ,tubifex, fed perhap's too often, and switched to more regular diet of pellet such as New Life spectrum,and occasional chopped earthworms,red worms,krill,shrimp, spirulina pellet, and flake. 
Have kept the German blue rams with Sterbai corydoras, and noted that they indeed were attracted to nesting sites of these fish possibly due to scent from egg's.
They were usually quickly attacked by the breeding pair, but would return within a few minutes without fail.
They are either incredibly stupid,or persistent. and though they were often nipped at it did not seem to deter them.
Not sure what corydoras species you have with them, but few species appreciate the warm temps that rams thrive in.
I kept the rams with Discus ,and afore mentioned Sterbai corydoras who tolerate the 82 to 86 degree's that the discus and ram's  enjoy.
Not many cory's last more than a year or two at these temps which is to me,,not too good considering that many can live five + year's.
I only mention the temp's because rams seldom performed well for me over the long haul in temps below 80 degrees F.
Seemed they did much better at warmer temps and frequent small water changes as opposed to large water changes that suddenly brought changes to the enviornment.Course the Discus also preferred this routine and if someting is working well,,, I am inclined not to try and fix it.
I should also add that there were no plant's in the tank,only driftwood,river stones,sand substrate.


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## mark4785 (13 Feb 2012)

roadmaster said:
			
		

> I am on board with Clive with regard's to  KNO3 being possible contributer to problems with fishes BUT,, I believe there is large difference between nitrate levels from mineral salt's and nitrate levels as result of decaying organics,metabolic waste,  which is more a sign of poor maint .
> Have  managed to keep more than a few cichlids healthy for years, in unplanted tank's along with loaches ,catfish,plecos, that are rough on plant's and the key was frequent water changes to keep metabolic input's from influencing the parameter's.
> Had more trouble with blood worms ,tubifex, fed perhap's too often, and switched to more regular diet of pellet such as New Life spectrum,and occasional chopped earthworms,red worms,krill,shrimp, spirulina pellet, and flake.
> Have kept the German blue rams with Sterbai corydoras, and noted that they indeed were attracted to nesting sites of these fish possibly due to scent from egg's.
> ...



I do feed blood worm to my GBR's weekly. Is this too often and could blood worms perhaps be blamed for hexamita/HITH onset given that the bloodworm has little to no nutritional value? One theory is that hexamita/HITH is caused due to lack of vitamin C and other minerals so I guess if a blood worm is being digested within a fish, a lot of space is being taken up in the organs (the intestines for instance) by material of no nutritional worth.


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## dw1305 (14 Feb 2012)

Hi all,
Fresh blood-worms are fine, but I'd keep away from the frozen ones. I find that a bucket of rain-water with some dead leaves will produce a supply of blood-worms even in the winter. I collected some yesterday as soon as the buckets had thawed enough to have a dip with the net. I add a few _Daphnia_ to the buckets (and water butts) as well, this gives you a "trickle feed" of live food in the winter. 

I'm really not sure about HITH, it certainly seems to be associated with a loss of water quality and/or limited diet and/or stress, but I'm not sure any one really knows the answer. 

You could try contacting Catrin Williams at Cardiff University, she was working on the  "_causative agent of hole-in-the-head disease in cichlids, namely the protozoan parasite Spironucleus vortens_.", but I don't know how she is getting on <http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/biosi/contactsandpeople/postgraduatestudents/williams-catrin-miss.html>.

Personally I'd keep a pair of Rams alone in a relatively large, heavily planted tank, in very warm, very soft water with lots of moss. If you really want some dithers Marbled Hatchets are probably your best bet. If you can keep them healthy, the Rams should be all right.

You also need a good stock of Rams to start off with, and let them pair out of a group of juveniles. Once they've paired you need to try and raise some of the fry from the first couple of spawnings as they have fairly short reproductive lives. On their own they are usually OK as parents and you can let them raise the fry.

cheers Darrel


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## plantbrain (14 Feb 2012)

I think you need to push the NO3 to under 5ppm for BGA issues..........

10-30ppm is a good overall range of NO3.
Some keep it at 5-10ppm but fuss over it a lot more.

Also, make sure to run a standard solution for NO3(see calibrating test kits).
Your test kit might be saying 20ppm when it's really 2 ppm etc.........and 50-60ppm might be 20 ppm.........so check the test kit before making management decisions.


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## Antipofish (14 Feb 2012)

This is really interesting stuff, and something along the lines of what I have long since suspected.  It strikes me as weird that people still think nitrates have to be low or non existent, when nitrate is actually needed for plant growth.  I have a mate who recently set up the river reef I originally was going to use and he went into a local aquatic retailer (who specialise more on the outdoor side of things but 'dabble' in tropicals too). He was told they would not be able to sell him any fish because his water quality was not good enough, but if he went home and did a 50% water change and came back the next day and retested, it would probably be ok.  I had already done a test and told him he could get a few small fish, having helped supervise his cycle, and he had 0ppm Ammonia, 0ppm nitrite and 30ppm nitrate.  When he asked them what the problem was they said his nitrates needed to be at zero !

Quite how doing a 50% water change would achieve that is beyond me, as is the stipulation in the first place.  

Needless to say, when I asked them what their nitrate level was in their system, and actually got them to test both their system and their tap water, they decided to revise their assessment of whether he could buy fish !!!  (Which he then declined to to, siting that their nitrate level was too high, and that he was concerned the fish may have been compromised, LOL).  

But no wonder hobbyists fall trap to misconceptions when the very "professionals" many rely on can't even get the basics right.


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## mark4785 (14 Feb 2012)

Antipofish said:
			
		

> This is really interesting stuff, and something along the lines of what I have long since suspected.  It strikes me as weird that people still think nitrates have to be low or non existent, when nitrate is actually needed for plant growth.  I have a mate who recently set up the river reef I originally was going to use and he went into a local aquatic retailer (who specialise more on the outdoor side of things but 'dabble' in tropicals too). He was told they would not be able to sell him any fish because his water quality was not good enough, but if he went home and did a 50% water change and came back the next day and retested, it would probably be ok.  I had already done a test and told him he could get a few small fish, having helped supervise his cycle, and he had 0ppm Ammonia, 0ppm nitrite and 30ppm nitrate.  When he asked them what the problem was they said his nitrates needed to be at zero !
> 
> Quite how doing a 50% water change would achieve that is beyond me, as is the stipulation in the first place.
> 
> ...



Indeed, a cold water employee at my LFS explained that nitrates should be kept below 20 ppm otherwise there would be oxygen problems and many guides on the internet state that nitrate levels should be between 5-10 ppm for Rams, neglecting to mention WHY it should be between 5-10 ppm when they are known to spawn in water with 40-50 ppm concentrations.


dw105, why should frozen blood worms be avoided? I currently use these as provided by Food4fish.co.uk. They are gamma eradicated and are a bit of meat for the GBR's so I thought they served a good purpose.


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## dw1305 (15 Feb 2012)

Hi all,


> Indeed, a cold water employee at my LFS explained that nitrates should be kept below 20 ppm otherwise there would be oxygen problems and many guides on the internet state that nitrate levels should be between 5-10 ppm for Rams, neglecting to mention WHY it should be between 5-10 ppm when they are known to spawn in water with 40-50 ppm concentrations.


There is a reason for all of these statements, and it relates back to the source of the nitrate and the conversion of ammonia (NH3) into nitrite (NO2) and nitrate (NO3). If you don't add nitrates to the tank water, any nitrates present either come from the source water, or from the conversion of the ammonia that has diffused from the gills of aquatic organisms.

*Tap water*
If we deal with tap water as a source of nitrates, if the water is high in nitrates it is unlikely to be low in carbonates, other nutrients or pollutants, and as such is likely to be unsuitable for keeping Rams in.

*Nitrification*
If we deal with nitrate as the end product of the nitrification: NH3 + CO2 + 1.5 O2 ? NO2- + CO2 + 0.5 O2 ? NO3-
we can see that nitrification is an oxygen intensive process and where the _"water high in nitrates, low in oxygen"_ idea comes from.

In non-planted tanks we can only reduce nitrate by water changes, therefore water high in nitrates has not been changed for as frequently, or in sufficient volume, to lower the nitrate levels. 

This is where the old fish keepers saying "_the solution to pollution is dilution_" comes from. This is incorrect, the solution to nearly all the problems that afflict aquarists is to add some actively growing plants, these immediately reduce, or remove, the majority of problems. We find that our nitrate levels decline with time rather than rise and will eventually start to limit plant growth and therefore we add nitrates (usually as KNO3).

The findings of Clive, Tom etc have been that nitrates themselves aren't damaging to fish health, even at quite high levels, so as soon as you have de-coupled  nitrate level from both initial water quality and/or the conversion of NH3 and NO2 this "wisdom" becomes obsolete. 

*Bloodworm*


> dw105, why should frozen blood worms be avoided? I currently use these as provided by Food4fish.co.uk. They are gamma eradicated and are a bit of meat for the GBR's so I thought they served a good purpose.


It came from a post on the "British Cichlid Association" forum, a lot of people who's opinion I respect (Mark Breeze, quoted below) said they had stopped using them following unexplained deaths, and since they stopped using them they haven't had a problem. 





> I have learned this at my cost over almost 10 years studying Apistos, ive lost some cracking fish over the years. I never feed bloodworm to any of my 40 odd tanks of Apistos now........you are quite right it should have read "frozen", think i mentioned this later. I actually buy and feed live bloodworm by the kg when i can get it, as long as its small....


 <http://www.britishcichlid.org.uk/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1336&start=20>

The reason why frozen ones may cause problems is more difficult to find, I've never fed frozen bloodworms, but I always discard any live ones that aren't a very healthy deep red all over and wriggling. I've seen pictures/videos of people feeding frozen bloodworms, and a lot of them are very pale and/or banded and I think the problems may come if the worms are dead before freezing, and have started to decompose. Collection site and diet may also be an issue. I feed mine on dead leaves from the garden (I don't use any pesticides), but commercially I think they are collected from Sewage Farm outflows etc. where they naturally occur in huge numbers in oxygen poor, organic matter rich sediment.

There has also been some suggestion that the chitonous head capsules of the bloodworms can cause intestinal blockage but I don't think it is blockage issue because:

1. Live bloodworms don't seem to be a problem, and
2. Bloodworms (chironomid larvae) are part of their natural diet of _Apistogramma_, _Mikrogeophagus_ etc.. From "Two new species of Apistogramma Regan (Teleostei: Cichlidae) from the rio Trombetas, Pará State, Brazil, Sven O Kullander; Efrem J. G. Ferreira (2005) http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S1679-62252005000300003&script=sci_arttext"

_  Bergleiter (1999) reported a mixed diet but mainly cladocerans, copepods, chironomid larvae and other aquatic insect larvae in stomachs of A. gephyra from the rio Xingu". 

cheers Darrel_


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## roadmaster (16 Feb 2012)

Agree with Darrel in above post with one exception.
In unplanted tank's where nitrates are end result of breakdown of organic's/animal protein's, such as tanks holding large waste producing fishes such as Cichlids,, or riverine fishes such as loaches,plecos,some catfish species ,then the solution to pollution is indeed dilution through water changes.
Cleaner water,,healthier fish in my expierience.
In planted tank's,,, no worry's from addition of mineral salt's such as KNO3 other than the increase in total dissolved solids which may or may not present problems for some species .
Course,,everything we add to the water can increase the  TDS


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## dw1305 (16 Feb 2012)

Hi all,


> In unplanted tank's where nitrates are end result of breakdown of organic's/animal protein's, such as tanks holding large waste producing fishes such as Cichlids,, or riverine fishes such as loaches,plecos,some catfish species ,then the solution to pollution is indeed dilution through water changes. Cleaner water,,healthier fish in my expierience.


No I agree with all your post, I'm not saying that you don't need water changes, quite the opposite in fact. All of my tanks are heavily planted, but I'm still a fanatical water changer. In non-planted tanks water changes are the only real weapon you have.

I try and use the "_reduction of BOD_" concept for tank management, (this is similar to the REDOX potential method used by Marine aquarists),  crudely BOD is the measurement of how much oxygen is needed to break down the waste created. The higher the BOD value, the worse the quality of the water. 

cheers Darrel


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## mark4785 (22 Feb 2012)

I just thought I'd add that I recently purchased a piece of scientific apparatus which measures nitrate in water. This is the device I obtained: http://www.coleparmer.co.uk/Product/Hor ... Z-05760-05 . I'm not sure its that exact model as I bought it elsewhere and was directed to the version of the product which is used for measuring low levels of nitrate in aquaculture.

I have set the product up which simply involves a few calibration steps and according to the device I currently have 40 ppm of nitrate in my aquarium water.

I normally blindly stick to an EI dosing regime whereby nitrates and phosphates are added every other day, however, where my nitrates are between 40-45 ppm, I'm omitting to add the nitrate (just solely adding phosphate instead). I'm purely doing this for the German blue ram I have in the tank since nitrates, or the way in which nitrates influence TDS content, may be inducing hole-in-the-head syndrome, something which is killing my other GBR which is in QT.


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## dw1305 (22 Feb 2012)

Hi all,
I've never used the "Horiba® Compact Nitrate Pocket Tester", but these type of testers are very widely used in Agronomy (for soil testing), and I would think they are fairly good as nitrogen fertilizers are both quite expensive and essential for high crop yields.


> where my nitrates are between 40-45 ppm, I'm omitting to add the nitrate


 It should be interesting to see what happens, I would expect the nitrate level to decline down to 10ppm ish within a week or so.

cheers Darrel


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## plantbrain (22 Feb 2012)

While frozen bloodworms might be radiation treated, this might not get all of the parasites or the bulb they treat with might be old, there is ZERO auditing for fish food and I avoid any from Asia. They do not say how it is done. Could be they hit it with a little dinky UV light once for 2 sec. They market and put that on the package to throw off everyone and think it's something else. Sells more of their brand while the other brands which may be cleaner, are pushed aside.

Does not imply it is a better product in other words.

I feed frozen blood worms made in the USA to my Discus, no issues.

Tap water NO3 in the UK is wide ranging but often much higher than in the USA. You might just sub K2SO4 in place of KNO3 or a blend to keep it around 15-25 as a target.

If it drops 5ppm less than this over 2-3 days, that's fine also. 
Your GBR has issues unrelated to water quality. 

Treat with Metro and in the food also.


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## mark4785 (23 Feb 2012)

plantbrain said:
			
		

> While frozen bloodworms might be radiation treated, this might not get all of the parasites or the bulb they treat with might be old, there is ZERO auditing for fish food and I avoid any from Asia. They do not say how it is done. Could be they hit it with a little dinky UV light once for 2 sec. They market and put that on the package to throw off everyone and think it's something else. Sells more of their brand while the other brands which may be cleaner, are pushed aside.
> 
> Does not imply it is a better product in other words.
> 
> ...



The frozen bloodworm, I USED to feed were from food4fish.co.uk and the package that they are situated in has 'gamma eradicated' on it. If it had not said this I wouldn't have bought it. I've speculated that since it is frozen (I keep them in my fridge at -19 degrees C) that any parasites would die anyway.

I'd like to believe my GBR developed HITH purely because another female GBR I had in the same tank had it even BEFORE I placed her in the tank, in other words she had HITH when she was within the LFS tank; the fish didn't know how to eat and was really dainty so I think hexamita induced HITH flourished in response to the LFS employees not checking that she was getting the right amount of nutrition; GBR's have very good eye sight so I guess the fittest would get to the food first. She died a few months later in my tank despite me treating for HITH and hexamita; I think the parasite, which is capable of living on detritus must have stayed alive in the tank and got into the next GBR I introduced (which is the male GBR I'm currently treating).

The male GBR was the only fish to continually peck my corydoras so it might be that this served as a stressor which made him susceptible to hexamita/HITH, while the present female GBR was not stressed by her tank mates at all and is currently very colourful and nice and plump!

The open top aquarium I'm slowly developing (I have a lot of course work to get through first!) will be a dedicated GBR tank with no other types of fish. All filter maintenance of this tank will be done underneath the tank since it has an external filter and I will only introduce GBR's to the tank after I've learned how to grow plants perfectly so I don't have to put my hand in and re-arrange stuff. All these measures should cut out stress completely.


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## plantbrain (24 Feb 2012)

mark4785 said:
			
		

> The frozen bloodworm, I USED to feed were from food4fish.co.uk and the package that they are situated in has 'gamma eradicated' on it. If it had not said this I wouldn't have bought it. I've speculated that since it is frozen (I keep them in my fridge at -19 degrees C) that any parasites would die anyway.



Not true unfortunately, why would they treat it with UV and freeze if freezing did the job?
Many parasites and bacteria can survive freezing.



> I'd like to believe my GBR developed HITH purely because another female GBR I had in the same tank had it even BEFORE I placed her in the tank, in other words she had HITH when she was within the LFS tank; the fish didn't know how to eat and was really dainty so I think hexamita induced HITH flourished in response to the LFS employees not checking that she was getting the right amount of nutrition; GBR's have very good eye sight so I guess the fittest would get to the food first. She died a few months later in my tank despite me treating for HITH and hexamita; I think the parasite, which is capable of living on detritus must have stayed alive in the tank and got into the next GBR I introduced (which is the male GBR I'm currently treating).



This is hard to say what happened. We have hunches, but that's about all we ever have in cases like these. 



> The open top aquarium I'm slowly developing (I have a lot of course work to get through first!) will be a dedicated GBR tank with no other types of fish. All filter maintenance of this tank will be done underneath the tank since it has an external filter and I will only introduce GBR's to the tank after I've learned how to grow plants perfectly so I don't have to put my hand in and re-arrange stuff. All these measures should cut out stress completely.



Just make sure to be  proactive about treating the fish prior to adding them to the planted tank, use a quarantine tank. I also had many issues with rams till I started doing this. Checkerboard cichlids did not get any issue, Apistos did and the Blues.........I got some fish from a well known breeder and his fish were awesome, no diseases or issues.

Sometimes it just pays to get fish from a real good source even if they are 2x the cost, if you lose 1/2 the fish or more, you have already made a wise choice


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