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i know plants absorb nitrates in the water, and i know i will continue to do my water changes regardless how well plants absorb nitrates, but how much do they absorb??

say if i have a tank with no plants, and within 2 weeks nitrate goes to 5-10, how long will it take for nitrate to get to that point if the same tank is heavily planted?

It greatly depends on what species of plants they are and how many of them are in there.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

It's one of those depends answers. It depends on the amount and the species of plant. It also depends on the amount of light available and if Co2 is supplemented.It's not really possible to give a definitive answer.

Some plants will suck up Nitrates readily, some plants not so much, some require low Nitrates to flourish. Generally fast growing stem plants and floaters who take most or all of their nutrient requirements from the water column will use the most nutrients. Good lighting and co2 will push plant growth which in turn will increase Nitrate uptake.

In a heavily planted, well lit, co2 supplemented tank Nitrate will probably drop to zero in a couple of days with Nitrate having to be added by the hobbyist.

So, your question is difficult to answer with a specific number. One thing is for sure though - any tank with a decent amount of healthyplants and a normal fish load should never experience high Nitrate issues.

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.

theres no real set answer it realy involes trial and error to work out exactaly how effective plants are and as stated before the fast growing plants like elodia(in cold water of corse) use the most nutrients and produce the most Oxygen but elodia is a hard plant to keep and i THINK alot of fast growing plants are very temporary cause i have to replace the elodia about once a month
plants more often than not slow down the increase in NITRATE than reduce it except in a duch aquarium or if u set up the tank the "JBL" way with 100's o plants per litre (egsaduration) in which case Nitrate rarely excedes 5ppm

uhmmm, what if the tank is heavily planted with hornworts?? would it be like nitrate free??

how good are vals, swords, crypts, stem plants (not hornwort) compare to hornwort in terms of absorbing nitrates? ahhh such hard thing to explain


yeah my tank is no dutch, but it has over 20 plants, and that is not including the glosso carpet and hairgrass. i think floating plants and fine-leaved plants are better at reducing nitrates??

Last edited by greenfootball at 08-Jun-2005 22:45

I don't really have any nitrate problems in my 29g because it's so heavily planted. I'm too lazy to dose nitrates, so I just overstock a bit and it's good. I usually test out at 10-15ppm, which is good

hey poisonwaffle, when you say heavily planted, thats how many plants? heavy like dutch heavy? or heavy like japanese heavy?

i THINK alot of fast growing plants are very temporary cause i have to replace the elodia about once a month

Absolutely not. Stem plants should outlive you. If you have to replace any aquatic plant once a month somethings wrong with your set up or care.

plants more often than not slow down the increase in NITRATE than reduce it except in a duch aquarium or if u set up the tank the "JBL" way with 100's o plants per litre (egsaduration) in which case Nitrate rarely excedes 5ppm

That's a bit of a generalisation. There's more then the quantity of plants involved.The tanks described may never get a Nitrate reading without the addition of No3 by the aquariast.
Fish load has a bearing too. Go back to the nitrogen cycle. Fish don't produce Nitrate, they produce ammonia which is converted to No3 by nitrifying bacteria. Plants much prefer to get their nitrogen from ammonia then no3, it's easier for them to get at the nitrogen, so will gladly snap up the ammonia. In a heavily planted tank with a light fish load the plants may get the ammonia before the bacteria does.
It's a common mis-conception that increasing fish load will make up for a lack of No3 in a planted aquarium. What you're actually doing is adding extra ammonia.Problem is that algae love ammonia as much as plants and get thrive on much smaller quantities. Ammonia is the more likely cause of most algae problems rather then Nitrate or even Phosphate. High No3 does not neccessarily equate to algae problems. The safest , easiest way to add No3 to tank that's deficient is by using KNo3, you're elimating the addition of ammonia and can regulate your nitrate levels.

Generally fast growing stem plants and floating plants will consume the most nitrate, as they extract most or all of their nutrients directly from the water column. A basic rule of thumb is the faster it grows the more it consumes. Swords also use a lot of nutrients thru sheer bulk, amazon swords for example can get huge and grow pretty fast so they need a lot of feeding. Crypts, ferns and anubias don't require much in the way of nutrients to get by, that's why they're easy to grow.

As for the last question. Somebody described it this way:
If a person looks at your tank and goes "nice fish, oh you have some plants too" your lightly planted. If they say "oh, you've got lovely plants" you're moderately planted. If they say "wow, is there any fish in there?" you are heavily planted
Me, if you can't see any substrate it's heavily planted

Every tank is an entity unto itself. Measure your own tank. Test No3 immediately after water change and then again a week later or before the next water change, then you'll see what your tank is producing/consuming.

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.

wow, thats some good stuff. well i guess my tank is moderately planted for now until the plants take over the tank. thanks again

Um.... a lot

Not as many as some tanks I've seen, but the main focus of the tank is 'round the plants

I might be getting a new digital camera tomarrow (I get my paycheck, so I'll have some money to spend on a new Sony Cybershot P200 ), so I might just have to post up some pics tomarrow If I do, I'll post up some links in here for ya's

pssssh, both my girlfriend and ex-girlfriend has the cybershot 3.2mp, they are cool cameras, but my girlfriend now wants to sell hers because she said the cybershot series flash takes too long, so the moving objects moved away already waiting for the flash.

i just recently bought a digital camera too, a canon sd400, HIGHLY RECOMMEND it. lemme know how your camera works out for you

Will do

The P200 is REALLY shnazzy (5 more MP than the one you mentioned ). They can take macros of stuff 'round 1" away, you can adjust ISO's and exposure times and all that good stuff manually, or have the camera do it. It's got 'bout every feature I could imagine...other than a built in hard drive or bluetooth or other whacked out things like that...doesn't have SLR either, but I don't really need that

You must be doing something wrong...I've got TONS of elodea (anacharis) in my 29g and it's thriving and shooting off branches everywhere

You want some?

2-5ppm/day is typical range for many high density fully planted tanks with good light/CO2.

Some denitrification occurs in the substrates, but this can be measured by removing the plants and then seeing the decline without any fish present.

Then your only source of N is NO3 from KNO3.

NH4 rate also vary.
0.2ppm to about 0.8ppm per day.

Do not dose NH4 inorganic sources, only let the NH4 from fish load add the NH4 fraction.

I add NH4 for other reasons, namely experimental and I am well equipped as well as very experienced with dealing with algae.

But that will give you an idea of the rates per day.

If you add roughly 20-30ppm per week of NO3 from KNO3, that will cover all the bases and all the K+ needs also.

PO4 also drives and increases NO3 uptake dramatically when PO4 is dosed.

I add roughly 3ppm per week.

Surge uptake occurs when a plant is starved and this can be seen in all of these nutrients.Those rates are very high but do not last for extended peroids of time.

Regards,
Tom Barr

www.BarrReport.com

anacharis? i am fine, had some, but they all eventually float on the top with bunch of hornworts, so i got mad one day, threw them all away except a small piece of hornwort which grew a lot and i threw a lot away also.

in fact today, i just bought a bunch of cabomba, and frills. my tank is lack of fine leaved plants.