High nitrate issues

[Stephen Zawacki]

Hi so I have a question my apistogramma breeding tank, the nitrates won’t go down.  I have the aquarium co op test strips, and would say it is around 1 which is obviously not the top but it is not perfect.  I’ve done multiple water changes to see if that lowers it and it does not.  I was wondering what I should do all the other parameters for my water are perfect.  
 

Please help 

thx 

[Aqua junky]

I would test your water coming out of our tap.  More times than not when Ive seen others have this issue and it always the fact that their water is coming out of the tap with nitrates in it.  Hope this helps 

I forgot to add that if thats the case with the tap water the only way of getting around that is by adding more plants or using remineralized RODI water

[Stephen Zawacki]

Ok thank you I will test my tap I'm on city water in Cleveland. Also I've heard that mangrove trees are good at removing everything and floating plants is that the case here is a pic of my tank if the two options above I mentioned don't work. What would you reccomend my tank right now is crypts and various rare swords 

[GardenStateGoldfish]

I would recommend adding pothos, sweet potatoes, mint, or any other plant that you want to grow out of the top. I’m also on city water that is very high in chloramine, chloramine converts to ammonia and fuels the cycle of nitrates, plus my tap is already at 10 ppm nitrate, so it will only go to 0 with the aid of plants for me. 

[Stephen Zawacki]

Thank you I for the information have you guys ever looked Into red mangroves tho just curious 

[GardenStateGoldfish]

On 12/29/2021 at 12:05 PM, Stephen Zawacki said:

have you guys ever looked Into red mangroves tho just curious 

I have, I was thinking about trying it, I believe they like harder water and the LFS by me would get them in acclimated to saltwater so I would just have to ease them over to freshwater. I didn’t pull the trigger cause I was concerned about the temperature my basement gets and the amount of light available. Mangroves would need more light, pothos are low light and easy to multiple, red mangroves would be very cool if you have the space, I do plan on adding some into my aquarium when I can 

[Stephen Zawacki]

Ok no worries I went to my local fish store and they recommended with how my tank is planted, I go with water lettuce, because it grows fast and easy and also eats everything in the water column so I gave those a try. Still going to test my tap