Hi guys.

I've just tested my water at work and it came out as follows:

pH - 7.00
Nitrite - 0.0ppm
Nitrate - 2.1ppm
Phosphate - 1.3ppm

Things is, I'm gonna put some live plants in there, will the nitrate and phosphate levels be high enough? Also, water nitrate level is 1ppm, should I stop doing weekly 20% changes, should I do bi weekly?

I have a liquid fertiliser but I do not know the ideal nitrate/phosphate levels for plants, and fish safety.

Please help :)

Presumably that is water you are not keeping fish in? Remember that once you have fish in the tank the nitrates will increase as rhe end product of the nitrogen cycle

Hi, yea I have 26 fish in there lol.

I haven't used fertiliser in that tank though, bought that for when I put plants in there.

I have a nitrate filter in my filter, should I remove that? And carry on with weekly water changes? It should have read "my tap water is 1ppm nitrate" on post 1.

Hi Capey

I'm a bit confused over what you mean when you ask "will the nitrate and phosphate levels be high enough?".

Most people aim to get phosphate down to nil as it encourages algae growth. Low nitrate is also a good thing if the tank has fish in it.

There are phosphate free ferts. If adding ferts try smaller daily dosing rather than a weekly one off dose as this seems assist with unwanted algae too

Hi Voilet.

It's my fault. I'm not really sure on plants. I just thought they used both nitrate and phosphate to grow. So didn't want to starve the plants and have them die off.

Can you recommend a good fertiliser? Or will hardy plants be ok with just the nitrate that's in there and the light?

Ah Ok. I get it. The plants I keep now in the goldy tank get eaten over time so I only use loads of cheap stem plants like Elodea, Hornwort, an onion plant (just a root tab under it roots) Java Fern and some floaters. I did begin with adding some plant ferts for these but have now knocked it on the head given the munching ability of the crew. These fair fine with no ferts and are deemed low light plants.

Anubias would do you fine. They need to be tied or superglued onto wood or pebbles (like the Java Fern) but are very undemanding

When I ran the tropical sets ups, I used a small daily combo of Seachem Flourish Excel (liquid carbon, also known as poor mans C02 that assists with algae) and whichever good liquid fert my good LFS had on offer at point of purchase - usually Seachem Flourish. Any of the heavy root feeders just got a root tab pushed under them every other month or so (these included the Giant Vallis, Swords and a lovely red underwater Lily I had).

Hope that helps

Apparently plants can use the ammonia that the fish produce before the filter bacteria have the chance to use it up, and they prefer this to nitrate anyway, so don't worry about low nitate levels. Best bet is to just get some hardy plants and put them in then see how they go on. Many websites make keeping a planted tank seem a lot more difficult and coomplicated than it actually is.