OuiBonjour
- #1
Hey, it's me again ! One of my tank gets Nitrates faster than my other tanks, and it's the less stocked.
Tank 1 : 5 gallon with big rocks, 3-4 planted plants, 80%-90% of top has duckweed and dwarf water lettuce. Sand substrate. Only a Betta.
Tank 2 : 5 gallon with 6-7 planted plants (maybe a little more), 10% of top is duckweed/dwl, small rocks substrate. 1 Betta, 1 mystery snail, 1 adult Ramshorn (lot of babies RS)
Tank 3 : 20 gallon, heavily planted, 80% of top is duckweed/dwl, small fine and round/smooth rocks as substrate. School of Black Skirt Tetras, 1 Serpae Tetras, school of Khuli Loaches, 2 amano shrimps, lots of baby assassin snails and, maybe, some red cherry shrimps that have been added a while ago (probably eaten a while ago too)
Believe it or not, it's tank #1 that is getting me "trouble".
It's the most recent but it has been completely cycled before getting the fish. I feed all my tanks daily and I'm cautious not to overfeed (and if they'd be one that might have a little overfeeding, it would be tank #3).
For tanks #2 and #3, I do a 50% water change every 7 days which decreases Nitrates to 2.5/5 ppm. At the 7th day, it's usually between 15-25 ppm and I do the WC.
As for tank #3, my Nitrates decrease to 2.5/5 ppm, but on the third day after 50%WC, it's already getting to 20-30-35 ppm. Since it's high, I do the WC even though it's not 7 days yet. So far it's the third time in a row (since I noticed the issue) that I need to do a WC each third day with this tank.
All of my tanks have absolutely no Nitrites. I get around 0.15-0.25 Ammonia in all tanks, but so does my tap water. I made a thread a week ago about this andeveryone told me to not bother, as it's either my tapwater, either the API test margin of error. I dechlorinate my tap water with Aqua+, and add a tiny bit of Prime during WC if tap water has 0.25 ppm, but no Prime when it's 0.15 ppm.
All tanks are between 78 and 82 degrees, all tanks have 7.8 PH (but tank 3 jumps between 7.8 and 8.0), all tanks have good filtration (tank #3 even have a filter designed for a way bigger tank, but I managed to create a floating spongy cushion under the HOB's cascade to reduce water movement to almost none)
Do you have any ideas why this specific tank is getting Nitrates faster than the others ?
Could it be because it has sand substrate ? Because it is less planted ? (even though there are A LOT of floating plants with long roots)
Can this specific Betta simply be more messy than the other ? (It's a Plakat while the other one is a Veil Tail)
I know some rocks can have an effect on PH, but could they have an effect on Nitrates ?
Even though I vacuum all tanks every week, I tend to vaccuum less "deep" in the substrate in tank #3 because my sand is getting sucked into the container. So I do the surface and maybe 1.5 cm deep in the sand when I vacuum. Should I vacuum deeper and could it be the cause ?
I'm adding some picture of my tank in case you might see something that could affect the Nitrates. Oh, there is one plastic leave with a suction on the back wall of the tank.
These are my daily water parameters for tank #3 since September 5th :
( Sept. 8th has 2 column because I retested after the WC )
Tank 1 : 5 gallon with big rocks, 3-4 planted plants, 80%-90% of top has duckweed and dwarf water lettuce. Sand substrate. Only a Betta.
Tank 2 : 5 gallon with 6-7 planted plants (maybe a little more), 10% of top is duckweed/dwl, small rocks substrate. 1 Betta, 1 mystery snail, 1 adult Ramshorn (lot of babies RS)
Tank 3 : 20 gallon, heavily planted, 80% of top is duckweed/dwl, small fine and round/smooth rocks as substrate. School of Black Skirt Tetras, 1 Serpae Tetras, school of Khuli Loaches, 2 amano shrimps, lots of baby assassin snails and, maybe, some red cherry shrimps that have been added a while ago (probably eaten a while ago too)
Believe it or not, it's tank #1 that is getting me "trouble".
It's the most recent but it has been completely cycled before getting the fish. I feed all my tanks daily and I'm cautious not to overfeed (and if they'd be one that might have a little overfeeding, it would be tank #3).
For tanks #2 and #3, I do a 50% water change every 7 days which decreases Nitrates to 2.5/5 ppm. At the 7th day, it's usually between 15-25 ppm and I do the WC.
As for tank #3, my Nitrates decrease to 2.5/5 ppm, but on the third day after 50%WC, it's already getting to 20-30-35 ppm. Since it's high, I do the WC even though it's not 7 days yet. So far it's the third time in a row (since I noticed the issue) that I need to do a WC each third day with this tank.
All of my tanks have absolutely no Nitrites. I get around 0.15-0.25 Ammonia in all tanks, but so does my tap water. I made a thread a week ago about this andeveryone told me to not bother, as it's either my tapwater, either the API test margin of error. I dechlorinate my tap water with Aqua+, and add a tiny bit of Prime during WC if tap water has 0.25 ppm, but no Prime when it's 0.15 ppm.
All tanks are between 78 and 82 degrees, all tanks have 7.8 PH (but tank 3 jumps between 7.8 and 8.0), all tanks have good filtration (tank #3 even have a filter designed for a way bigger tank, but I managed to create a floating spongy cushion under the HOB's cascade to reduce water movement to almost none)
Do you have any ideas why this specific tank is getting Nitrates faster than the others ?
Could it be because it has sand substrate ? Because it is less planted ? (even though there are A LOT of floating plants with long roots)
Can this specific Betta simply be more messy than the other ? (It's a Plakat while the other one is a Veil Tail)
I know some rocks can have an effect on PH, but could they have an effect on Nitrates ?
Even though I vacuum all tanks every week, I tend to vaccuum less "deep" in the substrate in tank #3 because my sand is getting sucked into the container. So I do the surface and maybe 1.5 cm deep in the sand when I vacuum. Should I vacuum deeper and could it be the cause ?
I'm adding some picture of my tank in case you might see something that could affect the Nitrates. Oh, there is one plastic leave with a suction on the back wall of the tank.
These are my daily water parameters for tank #3 since September 5th :
( Sept. 8th has 2 column because I retested after the WC )
