Nitrate balance with algae

[Jeremy Shives]

Im trying to achieve 10ppm of nitrate bc I have a heavily planted 190 gal tank, I check my levels one hour after dosing 20ml of easy green and I have zero nitrates. Now dose that mean my plants have consumed it all. I have a health amount of green/brown algae forming all over the tank. I'm not trying to eliminate the algae totally (I have algae eaters and I'll manually remove some) but I do want to make sure my plants get enough ferts. 

Edited December 4, 2023 by Jeremy Shives
Felt that a picture of my tank would help move the conversation forward

[Jeremy Shives]

Just trying to get it to show something, on all the tanks I've ever owned it's always showed zero for everything (ammonia, Nitrite, nitrate) so just trying to increase it. I've had successfull plant tanks before but never anything this large.

I haven't looked at the expiration dates on the chemicals, also running CO2 so that might play a factor in some readings. 

[Supermassive]

On 12/4/2023 at 12:13 PM, Jeremy Shives said:

Just trying to get it to show something, on all the tanks I've ever owned it's always showed zero for everything (ammonia, Nitrite, nitrate) so just trying to increase it. I've had successfull plant tanks before but never anything this large.

I haven't looked at the expiration dates on the chemicals, also running CO2 so that might play a factor in some readings.

Very nice tank.

Adding 20ml to 200 gallons should add about 3ppm of nitrates. Its possible that isn't enough to be detected by your test. Since you have never detected anything I would also be concerned that the tests are defective.

I would get a small cup with tap water then add a couple drops of easy green and test that to make sure you can actually detect nitrates.

[nabokovfan87]

Very beautiful setup!

On 12/4/2023 at 1:15 AM, Jeremy Shives said:

Im trying to achieve 10ppm of nitrate bc I have a heavily planted 190 gal tank, I check my levels one hour after dosing 20ml of easy green and I have zero nitrates. Now dose that mean my plants have consumed it all.

It's definitely got to be churning through nutrients, but perhaps there is ways to really figure out the situation.  Verify the dose off the doser is right and add in what may end up being (start lower) 1 full dose each morning.  This may also include things like iron or potassium given what all is going on with the setup you have and plants involved.  They should have loggers for nitrates or you can do it manually as well, testing.

When you mention testing, if you're running into any sort of questions with one kit, try another method to verify the test.  If you're using liquid, then run some tests with a strip, probe it, or take a water sample in somewhere.  After you're starting to show some nitrates and we're sure the plants, substrate, or algae isn't draining the tank, then you can adjust the dose up so that you have the baseline per day you're wanting to keep. 

As a sidenote, you have PSO in the back left there.  That thing alone will be the quickest growing plant for you.  It also may use so much nutrients that it chokes out other plants.  Just keep an eye out.  PSO can grow crazy fast.

On 12/5/2023 at 8:38 PM, Supermassive said:

I would get a small cup with tap water then add a couple drops of easy green and test that to make sure you can actually detect nitrates.

Awesome idea!