Newbie Fertilizing/Nitrate Question

[April0617]

Newbie to live plants and I'm trying to wrap my head around water changes, nitrate levels, and fertilizing. Prior to live plants, I'd do water changes to keep my nitrates under 20. I looked over Co-Op's water change info, and I know that nitrates should be around 40 in a planted tank. So, if my nitrates are under 20 right now, should I add fertilizer more than once per week in order to get it up to 40 right away? I'm very lightly stocked, currently, and looks like I will be for a while. 

[Tyler Kaplan]

Hi April0617,

 

I would generally air on the side of keeping things how they are right now, especially because I'm assuming when you say 'lightly stocked' you are referring to the fertilizers, and not the amount of fish in the tank. If you're already at 20 ppm nitrate, that means there is food for the plants in your water, they aren't starving to death I'm assuming. 

How long have you been dosing the current amount of fertilizer, and is there something that happened to the plants that made you think they aren't as healthy as they could be? If everything looks good I would say not to worry about hitting a specific level of something (of course this doesn't apply to ammonia and nitrites!) Hope this helps a little bit and good luck!

[April0617]

Lightly stocked was referring to the fish, I wasn't sure if that was something that would be helpful when people have answers😊 These plants are new, one order 2 weeks ago and one order just received this week, so I am brand new to plants! Too early to really say if they are happy. This is also a new tank for me, and this is the first week with plants in it, my first fertilizer dosing. It's 46 Gallons, so I did 4 squirts of Easy Green to start

[Kurt Brutting]

I recommend to keep doing what your doing and keep checking your parameters. Your leaves could melt a little being new to your aquarium depending on the plants and where they came from, but if they start to yellow I would dose to get to 40ppm. 

[Mmiller2001]

40 ppm is kinda high. One thing that needs to be accounted for is not just NO3, but PO4, K, Fe and Micro nutrients. If the tank is sitting around 40ppm NO3 and you don't add the other Macro and Micro nutrients, then where are the plants getting them from? So here we see the limitations of all in one fertilizers. How do I dose the others without exceeding one of the Macros?

My advice is to do larger water changes. I would do them over a couple of days and get the nitrates down to near zero and then dose the tank back up to 20ppm NO3(as Proxy). Then, every week, I would do a 50% water change and dose the tank by 10ppm NO3, making small adjustments if you need a bit more or less.

If you don't want to do 50% changes, then another strategy is to dose the incoming water to the ppm you won't the tank to be. This strategy requires a consistent water change schedule. At least 1 change every 7 days. Example, I have a 40 gallon tank and I change 10 gallons every 7 days. I would do my water change and only pump in the fertilizer for 10 gallons. So if I want to maintain 20ppm in my tank, I would use 6 pumps Easy Green every water change. After time, the tank will stabilize to 20ppm NO3 (proxy). Then if you test, and you are low or high, just make the small adjustment for the difference.

If you don't use an all in one fert, then just dose the PO4, K, Fe and micro's as your livestock create enough NO3 for the tank.

As a visual reference, I dose my tanks with 18ppm NO3, using CO2 and have all hungry, fast growing stem plants. At times, they can grow inches per week/days.

If you use Easy Green, here's a nice chart for dosing.

and my tank a few weeks ago.

 

Edited December 5, 2021 by Mmiller2001

[April0617]

Thank you both, and what a gorgeous tank😍