Plants and nitrates.

[TeeJay]

Hey all. My tank has been set up for 3 months now. Guppies snails and a few ghost shrimp. About 20 fish total. Ammonia nitrites are great staying at 0. Doing weekly 25 percent water changes. It is planted with about a dozen live plants. So my ? Is my nitrates stay at about 50-80ppm. I know my plants need them but it's hard to add liquid fertilizer because I don't want to raise the nitrates to high but want to get my plants enough nutrients. Any advice?

[Zac]

On 5/8/2022 at 8:52 PM, Uttjrt3 said:

Hey all. My tank has been set up for 3 months now. Guppies snails and a few ghost shrimp. About 20 fish total. Ammonia nitrites are great staying at 0. Doing weekly 25 percent water changes. It is planted with about a dozen live plants. So my ? Is my nitrates stay at about 50-80ppm. I know my plants need them but it's hard to add liquid fertilizer because I don't want to raise the nitrates to high but want to get my plants enough nutrients. Any advice?

I wouldn’t even worry about liquid fertilizer if nitrates are that high. However, you may need to supplement certain nutrients if they start to show deficiencies 

[TeeJay]

So maybe get tests for phosphates and iron? My gh stays about a 13--14 steady so I know I have quite a bit of minerals to a point. Any other nutrients I can test for?

[Seattle_Aquarist]

Hi @Uttjrt3

That 50 - 80 ppm of nitrates is high.  Some plants will not respond well to levels that high.  Unfortunately I disagree with @Zac, if you stop dosing an All-in-One fertilizer the plants will miss out on the two other macro-nutrients (potassium and phosphorus) as well as iron, sulfur, and all the micro-nutrients.  Instead I would increase my water changes until I got down in the 20 - 30 ppm range for nitrates and then dose lightly with the All-in-One and do regular water changes.  I do 50% water changes every week.  -Roy

[TeeJay]

Ok that is worth a shot. I think I will do a 50 water change tomorrow and let it run for a few solid hours and then check nitrate levels. Then maybe start with a half dose of easy green and easy iron and see where it puts me. I'll only do the ferts if I get those nitrates down to 20-30 before dosing.

[TeeJay]

On 5/8/2022 at 11:35 PM, Seattle_Aquarist said:

Hi @Uttjrt3

That 50 - 80 ppm of nitrates is high.  Some plants will not respond well to levels that high.  Unfortunately I disagree with @Zac, if you stop dosing an All-in-One fertilizer the plants will miss out on the two other macro-nutrients (potassium and phosphorus) as well as iron, sulfur, and all the micro-nutrients.  Instead I would increase my water changes until I got down in the 20 - 30 ppm range for nitrates and then dose lightly with the All-in-One and do regular water changes.  I do 50% water changes every week.  -Roy

So did a 50 change this morning. Waited an hour and nitrates are at 20-30. I will wait a couple more hours and re check. But I think increasing to that 50 will get me to the level I need to add my easy green.