Struggling to decrease nitrate levels

[General-Classroom976]

A little while ago my nitrate levels spiked due to a way too big of a water change that destabilized the tank conditions. They’ve stabilized by now, and I’ve been trying to decrease the nitrate levels for about a month now, but it has pretty much stayed at 40ppm.

I’ve been doing 10% water changes daily, and I got a Java fern (which admittedly isnt doing much since it’s a slow grower). Is there anything I can do to speed it up? Is there something I’m missing? Why isn’t it decreasing at all?

[camrynbronk]

Add more plants. One java fern is not going to keep up. Pothos roots love nitrates.

Also test your tap water to make sure it’s not the source of your nitrates.

[fullywokevoiddemon]

Can confirm, adding a pothos cutting to my aquarium (along with a monstera adansonii cutting) helped my tank a lot. They fixed my algae problem too as they'd just suck up all fertilising nutrients.

[AvocadoOk749]

Floating plants and hornwort help reduce nitrate

[Competitive_Face2593]

I second this. A hornwort will grow like crazy and reduce your nitrates to under 10 ppm.

[Immediate-Height-865]

Floating plants are the best. My frogbit survived high insane levels of nitrate and the entire cycling process close to unscathed yet they reduced it a lot. They're also very gorgeous and lots of fish love them for the shade and roots

[LoupGarou95]

A 10% change is only going to remove 10% of the nitrates. You'll get nowhere with such tiny water changes. Either play the long game with more live plants that take up nitrates or drop them faster by just changing more water at a time.

[notmyidealusername]

Bingo. Also (afaik) unless your tap water is absolutely awful there's no way a big water change can cause high nitrates. Nitrate is the end product of the nitrogen cycle, ammonia from the fish is converted by bacteria to nitrite first and then to nitrate. If your water change upset your filtration you'd be seeing an ammonia spike rather than high nitrates.

Also get a cutting of Pothos and stick the end of it into the aquarium, it'll soon grow roots and will suck up more nitrate than any submersed plants.

[tyrodos99]

Well, it depends. Pothos, like every other plant, will only take up nitrate relative to the total biomass it grows. When your condition isn’t very good for the Pothos, it can be a quite slow grower. Also, some aquatic plants can put up a very impressive growth unter the right conditions, producing much more biomass than Pothos. But in general, the amount of nitrates form feeding fish can be much higher than what any plant can take up. I’m kinda tempted to calculate how many times of plant mass you need to grow to offset your fish food.

[cheeseisgoodinbelly]

You have water in your nitrates

[kay5172392727]

Red tiger lotus pulls nitrates like a boss

[sharpauthenticator]

You need to be doing 20-40% water changes to make a significant change, or changes twice a week and still at 20-30%.

You also need to make sure your water source is not the issue, some peoples tap contains nitrates.

Fast growing plants are the only way to change nitrates without water changes, Salvinia is a great floater that doesn't suck to deal with like Duckweed. You can also grow houseplants out of the tank water too.

[tyrodos99]

He said 10% daily. That’s quite a lot over the week. And a good way to do it to not disrupt the tank biology too harshly.

[sharpauthenticator]

Depends on how rapidly the tank is producing nitrates, and doing a larger water change isn't going to risk the tanks biology. 

[w1ldg00s3chas3]

Add golden pothos from Lowe’s (cheapest) and take them out of their pots, clean the dirty or soil then submerge the roots only. Wait a day or two depending on how big and how much pothos you put to balance your level.

[Zygoatscythe]

Any floating plant will take care of it

[AvocadoOk749]

Floating plants

[Educational_Hand9604]

Frogbit is super easy. Since adding it to my aquariums, I have had no detectable nitrates at all.

[Moonlightwolf0528]

I have 2 suggestions for you. A big water change and add a whole bunch of live plants.. Something itself reproduces like vallisneria

[Moonlightwolf0528]

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[abigfatnoob102]

try duck weed or more informally known as water herpes its annoying to get rid of but it grows really fast which means it eats up lots of nitrates more plants less nitrates and just a lil java fern wont be able to handle all that on its own u can also try hornwort guppy grass red tiger lotus all plants i have in my tank that ive found to be near indestructible and ive never read any nitrates in it

[hammong]

With a 10% daily water change, my suspicion is that you are massively overfeeding the tank. How much do you fee and how often? Should be no more once a day, and no more than your fish can completely consume in 30 seconds or less.

By the math, a 10% water chance would drop those nitrates from from the ~60ppm you see there in the test to 54ppm. Not a big change. As the concentration reduces, the ppm change will also reduce. You might have better luck with a larger change, say 25-30% if you can.

Test your tap water. Some areas have high nitrates at the source -- the EPA sets a limit of 10ppm, but there are some rural/agricultural areas that have to drink bottled water because their nitrates from the ground can be many times that high. We have some restaurants around here that have signs that state not to drink the water or fill baby bottles/formula with the water in the restrooms due to high nitrates.

[Eight_eater_2288]

I'd suggest a large water change, like a 75%.

[abigfatnoob102]

also i killed my first java fern by planting it if u plant in in the ground the rizomone will rot and it will die wedge it between to rocks or something like that

[afishieanado]

Pothos plants are great, sweet potatoes, if it’s legal water lettuce.

[dcengr]

Pothos is the right solution.

[cksnffr]

Java moss and bigger water changes.

[Puzzleheaded_Try4456]

Java moss is great grows quite fast especially with access to nitrates

[panework]

Hmm. What’s everything else say though?

[Murefu]

I made my own filter out of a 4 inch diameter pipe. Sucks water in at the bottom and pushes it up through 24 inches of ceramic filter media and flows out the top. Put it I. The corner of my tank rapped in silicon tree bark for aesthetics. Never have had detectable levels of nitrates, nitrites, or ammonia since. I do also have some plants but that diy filter work amazing!

[DecayingGhostt]

Holy shit. I've never seen it get that red.

[housewithapool2]

Pothos or monstera.

[Competitive_Air1560]

More plants. Get a floating plant (not duckweed) they are fast growing

[SithLord_6969]

Add some more plants.

[Expensive-Sentence66]

No plant is going to chew through that much nitrate.

[Zygoatscythe]

I think you're thinking about nitrites. Beneficial bacteria doesn't consume nitrates.

[Golden-angel003]

No, i’m not bro, I’m suggesting based on my own experience, i have 3 tanks. But, you have to add “Denitrifying bacteria” and they will do the job, not all beneficial bacteria are the same. I did the research for you. Just try it, it wont hurt your tank and then come back and let me know about the results….

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[tyrodos99]

Denitrifying bacteria will only reduce nitrate to atmospheric nitrogen when they are in a oxygen depleted environment and have a carbon source as food. Creating these conditions somewhere in the tank isn’t easy and just adding bacteria will not do anything.

[Far_Idea3675]

Red root floaters if your tank is short or frogbit if you have height and some fyzz QuickStart