# High nitrates, fertilizer help



## Mwynn (Apr 26, 2018)

Hello,

I've had my 54 gallon Aqueon corner tank set up for about 5 months. Fluval 306, Aqueon light that came with it but added an extra bulb. I have it moderately stocked with plants. My levels had been good for most of the time and then i noticed my nitrates getting high 80ppm (ammonia and nitrite at 0ppm.) I was doing frequent water changes and it's now closer to 40ppm, but it wants to creap up if I dont do twice a week 30% water changes. 

Despite being relatively low stocked; 5 corys, 2 kuhlis roach and some RCS, it dawned on me it could be my fertilizer, Thrive x2 a week. I will be stopping ferts and continue water changes to see if it does level out. 

If it turns out to be the ferts, what would you recommend I use instead, my plants have definitely grown much better with the thrive, they were melting down alot before with just root tabs. I have a mixture of plants in there that require low to medium light.

Thank you for your guidance for this newbie, I love my planted tank!


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## Tyrant46290 (Jul 21, 2018)

My suggestion, check your ferts for phosphates. Also check to see if you're over feeding. How much, how often, and of what are you feeding? I'd do 50% water changes daily until about 10-15ppm. Then in 3-5 test where you're at. Some tanks just need more water changes than others.


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## CharvinRapspellenborger (Jul 20, 2018)

Fertilizers supply nitrates right? And you have more nitrates than your plants can use, so do you need fertilizer? Perhaps reduce it? If you are not overfeeding and are not overstocked, the only way to explain (that I can figure) high nitrates with ammonia and nitrite at 0 is the added fertilizer which is exceeding the demand of your plants (barring any dead matter in there that you don't know about).


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## maldo3 (Jun 8, 2017)

Hmm. I have been using NilocG ferts for about a year now with good plant growth but I found the need to adjust the dosing on each of my tanks. The owner sent out an e-mail this week discussing the topic. Some good info.

Colin / NIlocG wrote:

Quick note about the nutrient 'spike' I keep hearing about when using Thrive products.

I have been doing a lot of reading about peoples experience with Thrive products. Fortunately most results seem to be very positive and most seem to be happy with the products. One somewhat negative response that I have seen several times is the so called nitrate 'spike'(sometimes a phosphate 'spike') that people are seeing. I would like to clear up a few things regarding this.

#1- The dosing suggestion on Thrive and Thrive+ is to dose 1 pump per 10g 1-3x per week. This is just a starting point, some tanks will need more, many wont need that amount. Each and every tank is going to have different nutrient needs and dosing should be adjusted accordingly. 

#2- Even if you dosed the full amount 3x per week and your plants used up zero nutrients it would be adding around 21ppm no3 and 3.9ppm po4. If you are dosing this amount you should be doing the 50% weekly water change which would cut this rise in half. As you can see this amount is not a spike. If you are seeing rapidly rising nutrient levels then you need to explore other potential causes such as over feeding, dirty filter or dead fish/plant matter. 

#3- Regardless of what the reason for the climbing nutrient levels, if you are observing this you should increase your water change frequency and size and reduce the amount you are dosing. Adding more plants can also help keep these levels in check. 

He also mentioned he has a information section on the website along with a facebook page with more info.

Good Luck


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## tamsin (Jan 12, 2011)

Which version of thrive are you using? I very much doubt it's the ferts. At most they usually add less that 10ppm a week, and most are <5ppm. You'd need to do a lot of dosing and not a lot of water changes to have it build up to 80ppm.

Test your source water - that may have nitrates in.


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## CharvinRapspellenborger (Jul 20, 2018)

tamsin said:


> I very much doubt it's the ferts. At most they usually add less that 10ppm a week, and most are <5ppm. You'd need to do a lot of dosing and not a lot of water changes to have it build up to 80ppm.


10ppm a week x 2 is 20ppm per week! That can add up very quickly if your plants are not utilizing it and your water changes are only clearing out 25% of it.


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## Deanna (Feb 15, 2017)

Do you have a high tech (injecting CO2) or low tech setup?
How large is your biomass and how healthy are your plants?
How are you testing NO3?
Do you know your PO4 level?
What is the NO3 level of your water source?
How often do you clean your filter and the surface of your substrate (just the top)?
What Thrive product are you using and how much are you dosing?
Do you have good circulation?


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## Mwynn (Apr 26, 2018)

Thank you all for you suggestions. I feed very little and skip a feeding every third day. 

My tap water has barely 5ppm nitrate. I use the Api test and actually time myself when shaking.

I am using the regular Thrive, 5 pumps x2 a week.

And have been keeping an eye on my filter with regular cleanings. I vacuum the bottom weekly with my water change and in places stir it up a bit (i have plant soil with Sand on top.)

Most of my plants are health but i do suffer from melting sometime (especially before Thrive!). I remove melting leaves whenever I see them.

I will increase my % of water change and test P03.

I am questioning my water circulation and have been considering an extra pump. Because its a deep bowed front tank, I have found the best place for my outtake flow is in the middle at the back and that pushes the water forward and then goes off to both sides. I do see mild movement with my plants, but as its deep I'm not sure it's getting right to the bottom.


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## CharvinRapspellenborger (Jul 20, 2018)

Instead of changing out more water, why not reduce the fert, if the plants aren't using it all? Increasing % water change will achieve the same effect, but the in-between periods of water change should still show higher than desired nitrates.


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## Mwynn (Apr 26, 2018)

Also I do not use CO2, I did try excel but honestly didn't see a change when I stopped using it.


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## Deanna (Feb 15, 2017)

You are adding about 16ppm of NO3 per week via the Thrive alone. With 30% water changes twice per week, that will build to 25ppm of NO3 in about two weeks – ignoring plant uptake. Thrive is a good total package, as you found out, but many of us end-up having to customize our ferts. It is easy to do and would allow you to tune your NO3 levels and PO4 levels (if your NO3 is that high, I suspect PO4 is on the high side as well). I’m also assuming you are not injecting CO2, which means that your plants don’t need much NO3.

Having said all of this, “high” is relative. There are many highly experienced members that have seen no adverse effects at 100ppm of NO3. High NO3, to me, means that other things can be done better, e.g.; feeding, cleaning and dosing.

Didn’t see an answer regarding how often you clean the filter and the detritus from your substrate surface or whether you have enough circulation to move the water across the entire substrate surface, but those are important for keeping organics down. Another thing that will help with organics created by fish and plant waste is Purigen. Try putting a bag of it in your filter. This will reduce nitrates that are being created by wastes.

You might find this site useful to gauge your fert dosing and accumulation: http://rotalabutterfly.com/index.php. 
You generally should use about 80% of your tanks' rated gallons with these calculators, since you don’t actually have 54 gallons of water in your tank.

When you used the Excel, was it before or after you started using the Thrive?


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## tamsin (Jan 12, 2011)

CharvinRapspellenborger said:


> 10ppm a week x 2 is 20ppm per week! That can add up very quickly if your plants are not utilizing it and your water changes are only clearing out 25% of it.



Doing two 30% changes adds up to clearing out 50% of it each week. That means you should reach an equilibrium (absolute maximum) of double the dose you are adding each week.That's presuming your plants don't use any of it.


You could do a couple of extra water changes to get it lower (if you've been changing just under the amount you things can build up gradually) and then monitor it.


You may find a TDS pen helpful to monitor the 'stuff' in your water. It won't tell you what the stuff is but it's a very quick way to test with it's gradually going up or staying stable.


If you plants are very healthy and perhaps even growing faster than you'd like then you could swap to alternately dosing your current one with one that just had micros.


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## Surf (Jun 13, 2017)

> Colin / NIlocG wrote:
> 
> Quick note about the nutrient 'spike' I keep hearing about when using Thrive products.
> 
> ...


Colin missed one potential cause excess nitrate. A nutrient deficiency. If a nutrient gets depleted in the tank plant growth will slow or stop. This then allows nutrients to start building up in the tank. In my experience the there are two nutrients that build the fastest, nitrogen and phosphates. This would explain why you tank did not have a nitrate buildup problem earlier and now does. In some cases it can take months for a nutrient to deplete to a level that would cause this. In other cases it can be very fast. 

IN theory if you use a fertilizer and do a weekly water change this shouldn't happen unless you msively overdoes the fertilizer. However very few fertilizers have all the 14 essential element plants need to grow. As a result plants then deplete that element from the from the tap water and substrate.. Once the element is ono longer available in the water or substrate deficiency symptoms appear and plant growth slows or stops. Regular Thrive like 95% of the fertilizers on the market doesn't have any Calcium in it. It also may not have enough sulfate. 

If it is a sulfate of 0r Calcium problem you can get a GH test kit and compare the levels between the tank and tap water. If the tank has less GH than the tap water you might be deficient in calcium. You can resolve calcium and sulfur deficiencies by adding a sulfate GH booster such as Nilocgs GH booster or Sachem Equilibrium. Increasing the GH by 2 degrees using either of these products would eliminate the possibility of a calcium, magnesium, sulfur, and potassium deficiency.

It is possible to have other deficiencies but they are not as common.


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## Mwynn (Apr 26, 2018)

My Po4 was 1ppm this morning. I then did a 50% water change and checked my filter (it was pretty clean.) I then tested nitrates after the water change and it was 40ppm as expected. Will do another water change every other day and temporary stop ferts to try and get it to plato and see if it really is the ferts

I will need guidance on what to use as ferts as when i used nothing, except excel i lost a few plants to melting. 

I used excel before the thrive and stopped excel once starting the thrive just under 2 months ago. Should i restart the excel? I also have a bottle of flourish, I see it has alot less nitrogen, was wondering if I should try those 2 instead of the thrive for now.

I'm also going to look into a power head for the circulation you suggested, my tank is deep and I'm thinking it would help to get more movement near the substrate?

Thank you again for everyone's help.


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## Deanna (Feb 15, 2017)

If it is Flourish with all the micros in it (should be things like iron, boron, zinc, etc in it), yes: use that. However, you will need potassium (K) and the Flourish generally does not have sufficient macros ( N, P and K) to do the job. It is mainly a micro package. For now, the NO3 and PO4 seem to be in plentiful supply and you are going to test them as you withdraw the current dosing regimen. It may be that you will need to dose N separately from P (KH2PO4) and K (K2SO4), if your NO3 remains above 5ppm once you withdraw current dosing. Both, or all three, can be mixed in a single solution of your choosing. You can buy these in dry form (from Nilocg) and mix them yourself for dosing. It is much cheaper this way and simple.

In the spirit of staying with Nilocg, and in keeping with simplicity, you could also get the “Liquid Micro” and “Liquid Macro” from Nilocg and just use the micro for now.

It is also important to have magnesium and calcium. Test your GH. If it is between 3 and 9 you’re fine. If lower, you’ll want a GH booster. Nilocg has that as well. It is very likely, however, that your tap water has plenty of these minerals. An API GH/KH test kit is about $10.

I would also go back to the Excel (Nilocg’s version is Enhance). You were probably limiting any growth when you had no ferts. So, the Excel could do nothing for you. Now that you are adding ferts, the Excel will help with the carbon. Excel is hard on Egeria (Anacharis) and Vals, but they can get used to it.

The Hydor Koralia pumps are my favorite. They have a gentle wave-like flow pattern and you can get them in many different gph levels.


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## Mwynn (Apr 26, 2018)

I have the Api dip test for Gh & KH, there is no difference between my tap water and tank water. I will get the liquid test kit so i can really see what my numbers are.


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## Mwynn (Apr 26, 2018)

I got the Gh/KH test kit. My Gh is 6 so looks like that's ok. My KH was 2/3. I'm not sure of the role of KH in aquariums, is that good? 

My nitrates have been slowly decreasing with each water change. I have only been adding excel and flourish once a week for now. I did get some more Hygrophila corymbosa to help decrease the nitrates, but they are showing some melting which I am persuming is from the being newly introduced. The rest of my plants seem fine.


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## Deanna (Feb 15, 2017)

KH is a measure of how much buffering capacity your water has. It is linked to pH stability. The higher the KH, the higher will be the pH AND the more stable the pH will be. However, pH stability is not that important unless you have super-sensitive fish (most are not). Many of us, including myself, have zero KH for various reasons. In your case, I'd let it be since it is coming with your water supply. 2-3 dKH is normal. In addition to buffering, your BB use the bicarbonates as well.


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## Fisherking (Feb 27, 2012)

Thanks for this thread!

I just started using Thrive in my newly set up (6 weeks cycled)12 gal Edge and have noticed a small jump in nitrates. Nothing else has changed in the tank. It's gone from 0-5ppm to 10-20ppm. That's not terrible, but I've been wondering if it could be the Thrive and am going to cut my dose in half.


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