Nitrates vs. Fertilizers

[Larry]

My question is about accumulating Nitrates vs. fertilizers like Easy Green.

So, plants take in Nitrates, right?  And we are told that short of be able to achieve a complete "Full Cycle", the only way to keep the Nitrates at bay in our aquariums is to do water changes.  BTW, I'm using a Fluval 407 cannister filter packed with about 5-1/2 lbs of Biohome at the top and course, fine, and polishing sponge or physical media at the bottom. 

My community stocked 46 gallon bow front aquarium is cycled as far as ammonia and nitites are concerned. They are both at zero and holding steady.  Ph is always around 7 to 7.2, water temperature is maintained at 77.5 by a 300w Fluval e series Heater,  and the Nitrates are always around 40 to 80 ppm every time I test the water.  I do gravel vacuum of 1/2 the gravel with about 50% water changes maybe every 2 to 3 weeks.

I add 5 pumps of Easy Green weekly and I'm using a Fluval Plant 3.0 scheduled on the preset Planted Tank setting, but I still see water sprite in my tank browning lower down on the stems of the plant, but growing like crazy which I trim as it gets out of control.  I use Root Tabs for the Crypts and Amazon Swords. The swords are doing so so, but the crypts are doing great and look very healthy, but are growing slowly. 

So, can someone unlock the mystery of why nitrates climb, but it looks like I need more fertilizer to possibly fix the water sprite browning I'm seeing or is it lighting that is needed, and too much Nitrates or visa versa. 

 Am I misunderstanding how things are supposed to be working?

Help! Any advise would be greatly appreciated. 

  Larry in Pa

[TheDukeAnumber1]

How long have you been having this battle?

[Larry]

Maybe two weeks. The water sprite really looked good but now starting brown

[Marnol D]

I wonder if it could be an imbalance of macro vs micro nutrients. I dont know if you could have a possible build up of macro nutrients and the plants cant utilize them all due to not having enough micro nutrients to assist in growth. 

If its the lower leaves of the plants they could be being shaded and arent getting enough light so the plant is shedding them.

Edited December 11, 2020 by Marnol D

[Larry]

Is this something that Water Sprite is known for?  It seems like the plant is reaching up to the light a top growth become full, blocking more light. What is the solution?  Cutting back more of the top portion to get more light to the stems?

My main question is the whole thing of water changes to lower Nitrates only to add it back in with Easy Green. Do I have that wrong?

[Marnol D]

So I asked this question before about is there a difference between nitrates and ferts and the only difference between them really is that fertilizers will have all the nutrients that the plants wants while just normal nitrate build up may not have all the nutrients. 
 

so by you adding in fertilizers you are making sure you have all the proper nutrients. And the water changes are just helping maintain stable nitrate levels by removing certain nutrients that may be in excess amounts. 
 

is how I understand it. 

Edited December 11, 2020 by Marnol D

[Mmiller2001]

On 12/10/2020 at 8:27 PM, Marnol D said:

So I asked this question before about is there a difference between nitrates and ferts and the only difference between them really is that fertilizers will have all the nutrients that the plants wants while just normal nitrate build up may not have all the nutrients. 
 

so by you adding in fertilizers you are making sure you have all the proper nutrients. And the water changes are just helping maintain stable nitrate levels by removing certain nutrients that may be in excess amounts. 
 

is how I understand it. 

This 👆

And you can clip the nice lush tops, replant and discard the lower ugly portion.

 

 

[PhillipHols]

One thing to consider is that when nitrates run very high, other plant deficiencies can pop up.  The plants will use up everything not named nitrate at a faster rate when nitrate levels are high and then they begin to suffer.   It’s best to knock down the nitrates with a big water change and add fertilizers as to include all the other nutrients your plants need. 

[ChefConfit]

I'd say @Marnol D is right about the shading being what is going on with the sprite. Plants will get rid of leaves that aren't getting enough light rather than waste nutrients keeping them alive for no return. You could trim very short every once in awhile to combat it or top and replant Dutch style.

As for your nitrates I have a few suggestions. 1 cut back on the easy green. The recommended dose is 1 pump per 10 gallons per week which will provide 20ppm nitrates. So even at the stated volume of your tank you are slightly over the recommended dose. Now subtract the volume of your substrate, decorations and plants plus you lose volume because you don't fill the tank to the brim. Actual water volume is probably somewhere between 35 and 40 gallons. @Irenemade a video awhile back about how to dial in the proper dose for your tank that might help.

I'd also suggest doing smaller water changes more often to help keep everything more stable. Probably won't help with nitrates but it use usually best practice to keep water changes under 20 or 30 percent unless something is going wrong. 

Finally be careful not to overfeed as that can cause nitrates to build up faster. You could even go one day a week without feeding to encourage scavenging so there isn't any extra food lying around in the tank. There is a post from the other day about fasting fish here

 

 

[Koi]

HI Larry,

What I think you're going through shares the same symptoms as Old Tank Syndrome. I think you should if possible start doing weekly water changes to atleast keep your nitrates within 20-30 ppm. I don't think it would be the case for your water sprite but I do notice for some of my stem plants, high nitrates tend to stunt them. Organics like the old decaying leaves or excess food that aren't removed from your tank can cause nitrate build up but since you say you do gravel vac you could possibly look into testing how much nitrate is in your tap water. That could also explain why you might not see your nitrates coming down because you could be adding some into your tank during the waterchanges.

As far as the growth of your water sprite, it looks like its growing well so I wouldn't worry about the die off and just focus on the new growth. From that picture it looks about time to cut them anyways so I would definitely uproot the plants and just plant the new tops maybe with some space in between them so they can grow without shading each other.

And for the last part, this is what I personally would do to reset your tank parameters is to do a 50% water change and do another 50% in 2-3 days for the first week. That should hopefully bring it within 20-30 ppm and then 50% weekly changes to keep nitrates below 40. This last part is just a suggestion to try to get your tank back on track, in the end do whatever is most comfortable for you.

 

[Brandy]

I would like to suggest one other solution. Stop using EasyGreen entirely, and instead go for a trace mineral fertilizer for a couple of weeks and see if your nitrates issue resolves. The idea being that you will get the plants to use up the nitrates they have, and only supplement the trace minerals they may be lacking. Then only supplement EasyGreen when nitrates drop below 10-15ppm.

Your tank doesn't look over stocked. You may also want to double check that you don't have nitrates in your source/tap water.

[Mmiller2001]

1 hour ago, Brandy said:

I would like to suggest one other solution. Stop using EasyGreen entirely, and instead go for a trace mineral fertilizer for a couple of weeks and see if your nitrates issue resolves. The idea being that you will get the plants to use up the nitrates they have, and only supplement the trace minerals they may be lacking. Then only supplement EasyGreen when nitrates drop below 10-15ppm.

Your tank doesn't look over stocked. You may also want to double check that you don't have nitrates in your source/tap water.

👆

[StephenP2003]

9 hours ago, Brandy said:

I would like to suggest one other solution. Stop using EasyGreen entirely, and instead go for a trace mineral fertilizer for a couple of weeks and see if your nitrates issue resolves. The idea being that you will get the plants to use up the nitrates they have, and only supplement the trace minerals they may be lacking. Then only supplement EasyGreen when nitrates drop below 10-15ppm.

Your tank doesn't look over stocked. You may also want to double check that you don't have nitrates in your source/tap water.

This is what I would do. In fact, there are very few tanks in which I use easy green at all because the tanks make their own nitrates, and my tap water comes with 2ppm of phosphate -- and I've had some serious algae and browning/imbalance problems as a result of too much of both of those (or so it seems). I am pretty much down to dosing just potassium and micronutrients.

[Brandy]

1 hour ago, StephenP2003 said:

This is what I would do. In fact, there are very few tanks in which I use easy green at all because the tanks make their own nitrates, and my tap water comes with 2ppm of phosphate -- and I've had some serious algae and browning/imbalance problems as a result of too much of both of those (or so it seems). I am pretty much down to dosing just potassium and micronutrients.

Ermagerd. I just am sitting over here with my RO tap water and 47 bottles of additives kinda jealous as heck! Lol.

[StephenP2003]

31 minutes ago, Brandy said:

Ermagerd. I just am sitting over here with my RO tap water and 47 bottles of additives kinda jealous as heck! Lol.

My tap water comes with phosphate, calcium carbonate (7 dKH), and chloramines. 0 GH. I have to add a lot of gh boosting products, and with 9 tanks and several with live bearers, I calculated I'm spending 10 bucks a month just to increase my GH.  

[rdaled]

This thread has been very informative, I've been having a similar issue... pH 7, Kh 2, Gh3, and high nitrates.

I preformed a 50% water change and that brought the nitrates down to 30, but the Kh and Gh are still low.

Have been dosing with easy green, but only after a water change. Also using root tabs for the root feeders.

Plants are growing but very slowly and I'm fighting hair algae.

I need to test the Kh and Gh in my tap water to see if I need more water changes to replace the trace elements, or if I need to dose.

[Marnol D]

Ive never tested my tap water for whats in it... I know i get hardwater build up but when i tested it it reads 7.4ph 0 ammonia nitrite and nitrate so im pretty comfortable with it. The only algae i have had issues with is BBA and Staghorn (staghorn is way easier to get rid of)