Quote:
Originally Posted by mistergreen
true, true.
But I keep fish with the plants too and I see behavioral changes with 70ppm+ of NO3. So they(the fishes) also tell me the limit... Maybe someday when I do a mostly planted tank, I can go crazy. Or I can do the opposite and do a natural plant tank ala Walstad.
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Really?
Think about why your tank has 70ppm + NO3 and how it must form if you have a high fish stocking level, fish do not excrete NO3, they excrete NH4............
So is it the NO3, or is it the NH4 that's the issue?
I have very high stocking levels with lots of plants.
I have no issues and the fish health and behavior are awesome and have been fine for many years. Also, what type of test method do you use for measuring NO3?
Are you adding KNO3 to discern whether it's due solely to NO3?
If your comments matched the observations I've done, I've done this same type of test many times over many years, I'd agree with you.
But they do not. Discerning behavioral changes is difficult, but we will ignore that issue and assume that we can tell to be on the safe side.
How is it that your tank is having 70ppm + NO3's BTW? Assuming that the test method is giving you the correct readings at such a high range.
Something does not add up. some make dosing mistakes, but it's
rare anyone would purposely dose 70+ ppm of NO3.
I've never been able to, nor have 1000's of aquarists, been able to keep NO3's without dosing KNO3 even with heavily stocked tanks with CO2/mod to higher light.
A 120 gallon discus tank with 14 full sized adults, fed 2x a day, worms, 2w/gal, CO2, 85% planted, never managed to build up and required about 1/2 teaspoon KNO3 3x a week to maintain decent 20 ppm range NO3's
I'm not suggesting anyone needs 75ppm of NO3(20-30ppm is fine and a decent non limiting range), but how you determine the NO3 and the source make enormous differences. As does how you define behavioral issues and whether they are really due to the high NO3 or rather something else.
I do not see anything that suggest those issues where addressed.
Regards,
Tom Barr