how much nitrate to dose for non co2 caridina tanks?

[snowballs99]

Have a few caridina shrimp tanks with semi-exhausted aquasoil filled with mosses and buce.

I was wondering how much nitrate should I dose per week as a proxy?
I'm trying to do monthly water changes instead of weekly to reduce maintenance.

I was thinking thinking to dose 8-10 ppm of nitrates as a proxy per week, once per week.
Then do a 60% water change at the end of the month?

 

[Naturescapes_Rocco]

That's what I'd do with a low-energy system! You can just front-load your macros at the beginning of the week after your water change.
Aim to dose the incoming water to 10ppm NO3, with ~1ppm PO4 and 10-15ppm K, and with good flow, low to moderate lighting, and consistent water changes of 50% at least, you should be fine. That's what I've done!

Edit: just noticed the "end of the month" for water changes. I'd suggest doing end of the week, or reducing your dosage by a lot.

 

[Gwad]

Have a few caridina shrimp tanks with semi-exhausted aquasoil filled with mosses and buce.

I was wondering how much nitrate should I dose per week as a proxy?
I'm trying to do monthly water changes instead of weekly to reduce maintenance.

I was thinking thinking to dose 8-10 ppm of nitrates as a proxy per week, once per week.
Then do a 60% water change at the end of the month?

So you are saying you would dose 32 ppm over 4 weeks and then do a 60% water change? I think this could end up leading to significant accumulation and swings over time.

I don't dose nitrate or phosphate at all in my low tech tank and it does quite well, although it has a handful of small fish contributing to it. Id probably start lower like 2 or 3 ppm per week and see how stable you can keep the nitrate level over the month.

 

[CincyScaper]

What do you currently dose ? how are the plants doing with your current dosing ?

 

[Aquajack]

So you are saying you would dose 32 ppm over 4 weeks and then do a 60% water change? I think this could end up leading to significant accumulation and swings over time.

I don't dose nitrate or phosphate at all in my low tech tank and it does quite well, although it has a handful of small fish contributing to it. Id probably start lower like 2 or 3 ppm per week and see how stable you can keep the nitrate level over the month.

I'm the same, in my low tech, low light 7ft skinny tank which only gets a water change every 2-3 weeks it gets a solution of K & micros only. It is only moderately stocked so nitrates and PO4 admittedly are on the low side but not bottoming out. Plus side there is literally zero algae in the tank, watercolumn, glass or otherwise.

Tell you what you do see what a difference CO2 makes to plants though. I have blyxa in that tank and its like night and day compared to a CO2 tank.

 

[ElleDee]

So I only do low tech tanks and have very low energy tanks that I only change the water for every couple of weeks to every month. I mostly dose when I change the water. Because the demand is so low, the nitrates hardly budge. If it's been a long time between water changes I might flick in a smidge of micros or just EDDHA iron. My concern there is not that there aren't enough of those elements in the tank per se, but that they might not be plant-available (I have water with pH >7).

FWIW, my nutrient targets are 5 ppm NO3, 0.5 ppm PO4, 10 ppm K, micros indexed at 0.15 Fe. Again, that's entirely front dosed and this is targeted dosing, so that's the ppm of the water changed and not relative to the entire water volume of the tank. That technically puts me in between what @Naturescapes_Rocco and @Gwad have recommended, but they are all basically in the same ballpark. It doesn't really matter that much.

I do weekly water changes on any newer tank and only start "slacking" on maintenance once the plants have fully conquered the tank and the whole system was very mature and stable.

So you are saying you would dose 32 ppm over 4 weeks and then do a 60% water change? I think this could end up leading to significant accumulation and swings over time.

Yeah, I wouldn't recommend that either.

 

[snowballs99]

So you are saying you would dose 32 ppm over 4 weeks and then do a 60% water change? I think this could end up leading to significant accumulation and swings over time.

I don't dose nitrate or phosphate at all in my low tech tank and it does quite well, although it has a handful of small fish contributing to it. Id probably start lower like 2 or 3 ppm per week and see how stable you can keep the nitrate level over the month.

Hello!

Yes around that much. Im currently dosing apt complete, which is like 1-2ppm nitrates per dose.
I have a lot of bucephalandras in nearly all the tanks and they seem to get holes in their leaves if my nutrient levels are too low.
All tanks just have like 10 caridina shrimp, so bioload is basically 0.

I'm more predicting these tanks will consume around 15ppm of nitrates per month, which leaves 15 in excess.

 

[snowballs99]

What do you currently dose ? how are the plants doing with your current dosing ?

apt complete, 2 times a week.

 

[CincyScaper]

apt complete, 2 times a week.

Just so that I understand your question, is there an issue with your current dosing of apt 3/complete?

 

[snowballs99]

Just so that I understand your question, is there an issue with your current dosing of apt 3/complete?

Nope, but the plant growth is really slow and I do see some yellowing of some eriocaulons I've been growing. A lot of crypts seem to have stalled as well, so I'm assuming the soil is just really exhausted of nutrients at this point. I'm not sure of APT 3 is adding enough for the plant load in the tank.

I remember when I first set it up and dosed nothing, and everything grew very fast!
(Well faster than now, also had a little green wall from the ammonia leech I suppose)

Green wall is completely gone and there seems to be some thread algae moving in on some plant leaves. All of these seem to indicate towards lack of nutrients, thus plants are shedding older leaves to adapt.

One option is to just double my dosage of APT 3 and see how it moves from there.

 

[ElleDee]

How old is this tank? There are a lot of things that could be going on to explain the change in growth. Nutrient demand in low tech tanks with slow growing plants is very low and you are dosing, so I'd consider other possibilities.

 

[CincyScaper]

I have noticed that in lean dosed system, there is reliance on substrate. An option would be to try some root tabs in areas where you consider there are issues. Another option would be to add some extra aquasoil in those area. A sudden increase in water column nutrition would have your system go through a period of stress until the system adapts. Based on what you are thinking of low maintenance (once a month water change), substrate enrichment might be a better option.