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Liquid ferts causing my high nitrate?

Andrew Perkins

Andrew Perkins

Member
Joined
6 Feb 2014
Messages
27
Location
lancashire
I have dose this morning about 10.30 am after checking this afternoon 4.00 pm my nitrate levels are very high 40 - 80 ppm, I cant quite work out which one it is on the colour chart. My nitrate is normally 0 ppm but I started using TNC complete once a week about 5-6 weeks ago, is this causing my high nitrate levels to build up? I understand it breaks down into nitrogen to feed the plants but its really worrying me being so high, I dont know if the plants will absorb it all before the next plant feed is due.
Ammonia 0 ppm
Nitrite 0 ppm
Last water change - Wednesday 14th January
 
I bought some new fish today rummy nose to add to my other rummy nose, I dont really want to stress them out to much with doing big water changes
 
Hi,

How much are you putting in (and tank size)?
How often are you water changing?
What are you lights?
Do you use Co2?
How planted is the tank?
What substrate?
How heavily stocked in the tank currently?


erm..... i think that's all the questions people will ask.

Best Regards,
John
 
Hi
I have a juwel trigon 190
I am putting about 18 - 19 ml per week
water changes once every 2 week sometimes 3 week
2x T5 28 watt
No Co2
silver sand with normal gravel
I say well planted - cypts - vallis - anuabias - amazon sword - nymphaea lotus - hygrophilia - bucephalandra
19 fish in total - 10 rummy nose - 6 neon - saimese fighter - siamese algea eater - corycat.

I only start dose cause my vallis were looking pale and the amazon sword hardly grown, now both are doing well. But some of crypts and anubias have a bit of algea on them
 
Last edited:
happen to have a photo?

I'm wondering if your CO2 is bottoming out and stopping plant growth/absorption. But frankly you are not putting THAT much ferts in. Just standard doses. Not very many demanding plants there also. Depending on how heavily planted (photo 🙂 ) you could get away with a trace plus potassium fert instead and root tabs for the crypts and sword.

The crypt and sword, being root feeders by preference, would benefit anyway from root tabs.

Side point - you may want to divide the dose by 7 and add it daily.

Best Regards,
John
 
Hi
If its tap water your using for water changes.
Try find out what nitrate level your tap-water is from the municipal supplier....mines is approximately 50ppm!
Reduce your dosing by 50% each week....to see if that reduces your NO3 level.
Remember if you haven't been dosing fertilizers, your plants would have used up the NO3 in your tap water changes, giving you low Nitrate readings previously!
Cheers
hoggie
 
Thanks for your reply everyone. This is what I have found on the untied utilities website.

Nitrate occurs naturally in water. Increased concentrations in water sources can occur as a result of fertiliser use. Nitrate concentrations are reduced during water treatment. Standard 50 mg/l
 
You don't really have to worry about nitrates at 80ppm. My API test kit read 80ppm and I thought I could stop dosing KNO3 since the tank was making its own nitrate from nitrifying bacteria. But my plants melted. When I was dosing KNO2 at 20ppm per week, my test kit was reading 80-160ppm! No issues with fish or shrimp health though.
 
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