koocmada

I recently decided to setup my 56 gallon planted, and with some help of the members here, I'm underway. My fish load is fairly high as I bought the fish before deciding to go planted. I currently have 8 clown loaches, 6 Buenos Aires tetras, and 6 tiger barbs in the tank. Everything appears to be growing well, I have 130w 6k/10k lighting, DIY CO2(two bottles), I am dosing K2SO4 every other day to 20ppm. On off days I am dosing Plantex CSM+B and excel. I also dose flourish iron once a week and do a 20% water change Wed, and a 40% on Sat. My nitrate is usually sitting around 40ppm so I haven't dosed nitrates or phosphate. I was just curious as to wether a nitrate level this high has any adverse effects on aquatic plants? The only real problem I'm experiencing now is with my H. difformis looking a bit leggy. I believe this could have to do with the temperature being at 84 degrees(going to try to bring it down). The leaves that are growing at the top are much broader than those I see in pictures of the plant online, so I'm assuming they're just shading a little too much. Another quick question... I recently added so red ludwigia and moneywort. I'm kind of hoping that with more plants I can bring down the nitrate level to some balance with the amount of waste my fish produce. These plants were sold to me with no root systems and they are just starting to grow in, and I was wondering if once these plants have roots established whether they will be more efficient nitrate consumers? It seems like common sense to me that they would, just want it verified by someone with more background in this than me. Thanks ahead of time.

BryceM

Something is "fishy" with your nitrate readings. With waterchanges this large I must suspect one of the following:

1) your test kit isn't accurate
2) you have large concentrations of NO3 in your tap water
3) you are feeding WAY too much

40 ppm NO3 isn't all that harmful (debatable), but I really doubt yours is that high, especially if you aren't adding any.

I'm sure I don't need to tell you that a 56g tank is far too small for clown loaches, especially 8 of them. They can easily reach 8-12" in size.

koocmada

I'll have to try another test kit, I have .42ppm nitrates in my tap water so I don't think that's the issue. I really don't think I'm overfeeding them as there is never any additional food in the tank after a feeding and I generally try to be conservative to limit their "pooping" habit, and yes I know the tank is far too small for clown loaches, I used to have a 300 gallon I used to keep them in a few years ago and they were my wifes favorite fish. Unfortunately, we sold the tank when we moved. The clown loaches are part of my "Oh my, look how big they've gotten honey, looks like we're going to need a bigger tank again" plan(aka: disgruntled wife plan) Thank you for the suggestions!

BryceM

Ummm, yes........ an excellent plan....... "Honey, for the well-being of the fish it would be simply inhumane not to get a bigger aquarium."

Try calibrating the kit you have. Mix up a stock solution of 10ppm NO3 and 20ppm NO3 and see what your test kit says. If you search the database you should easily find a technique to do this.

BTW - plants can pull the NO3 level down, but not to a huge extent unless you have a very large plant mass of rapid-growers with high light and high CO2.

hoppycalif

Without phosphates the plants won't use the nitrates. So, in my opinion, you need to dose both nitrates and phosphates. If you follow the EI fertilizing routine, http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/f...ing-guide.html and be sure to do weekly 50% or more water changes, you won't have to worry about having too much of any of the fertilizers. Then, the plants should grow very well, or at least as well as your limited CO2 supply allows them to grow.

You could trade your clown loaches for Yoyo loaches, which are even more entertaining, and quite good looking too, and you will not be crowding the tank quite so much, since they don't get nearly as big.

Whether you use a new or an old test kit for nitrates, you need to calibrate it to be sure the readings are correct before trusting it.