I am showing 10 ppm of nitrate in my 10 gal. low-tech planted tank. It was zero every week for quite a while. I don't think this is a tap water situation. I do a partial water change once a week of 25%.
I'm trying to figure out why I'm showing some nitrates all of a sudden. I definitely need more plants. I know that aquatic plants can digest ammonia. I'm going to guess that the nitrates are from the friendly bacteria, and whatever ammonia or nitrite gets ingested by plants does not end up as nitrates. Is that right?
I also lowered the photoperiod several weeks ago by one hour to 9 hours (plus 2). Maybe I should put it back up to 10 so that the plants will grow more actively again. That's pretty clear. There are also some other problems going on in this situation: trimmed all my plants at the same time got 6 Pristella Tetras; started dosing Flourish Complete and Seachem Tabs.
Thanks a lot for any facts, conjecture, or confirmation. I guess I coulld do a bigger water change every week.
Steven
I'm trying to figure out why I'm showing some nitrates all of a sudden. I definitely need more plants. I know that aquatic plants can digest ammonia. I'm going to guess that the nitrates are from the friendly bacteria, and whatever ammonia or nitrite gets ingested by plants does not end up as nitrates. Is that right?
I also lowered the photoperiod several weeks ago by one hour to 9 hours (plus 2). Maybe I should put it back up to 10 so that the plants will grow more actively again. That's pretty clear. There are also some other problems going on in this situation: trimmed all my plants at the same time got 6 Pristella Tetras; started dosing Flourish Complete and Seachem Tabs.
Thanks a lot for any facts, conjecture, or confirmation. I guess I coulld do a bigger water change every week.
Steven