[scottysgirl]

Hi, I have a 30 gallon tank which contains 3 blue rams, 1 dwarf botia, 2 kuli loaches, 1 angelfish, 3 raspboras and a dwarf puffer. I vacuum the tank and do a 20% water change about once every two weeks. There are a few plants in the tank although I have had a hard time keeping plants alive, they all want to die and pollute the tank. There is now more light in the tank and some added plant fertilizer. My main question is: why are the nitrate levels in the aquarium (which has been set up for about 4 months) stubbornly refusing to go down. Nitrite level is 0, but nitrate level, while still in safe range according to testing kit, is borderline and refuses to go down (I will check later and see what the level is exactly.) The tank is at 78 degrees and all the fish seem perfectly healthy and happy, the water is extremely hard. Does anyone have any ideas about what is going on?
Thank you

 

[scottysgirl]

The nitrate level is around 25, and has been consistently there for a long time. I don't know the names of the plants. One is a bulb with long slender leaves, and another is a bulb with dark spade shaped purple leaves, there are five other plants in there right now, one looks like a hornwort but it is not, and I don't know what the others are.

 

[scottysgirl]

Thanks for all the help and replies everyone! We do have about 15 ppm nitrate in the tap water naturally, we do live in a farming area. The plant we had the most trouble with was a 'hornwart' it pretty much seemed like it desintegrated, turned brown and died all the way down to the base. Our dwarf lilly bulb started turning kind of transluscent and gross looking and then a leaf fell of. We are fertilizing the plants (just started) and also added another light. We also have 7 Vals in the tank and a crypt and a tall bulb flower, looks like an onion, Cambium or something like that. We just got these recently and the still look fine. The water temp is 78 degrees.