Nitrate level

[pennex1]

Started with 13 penny size Discus about a month ago. The tank was cycled prior. Have been doing daily water changes of at least 15 gallons everyday and 2x a week 30 gallons+.

I check the water parameters about twice a week. I have yet to reach .25 ppm in my ammonia level. The nitrite is always 0ppm. The nitrate however is usually around 10 ppm to 20 ppm. It reached 30 ppm once. What is the high point for the nitrate level in a 45 gallon tank that will still be ok for the baby Discus? It is next to impossible to get the nitrate level to go below 10 ppm.

Using a Cascade 1200 canister filter.

[CajunAg]

Changing more water = lower nitrates. If you change 90% or more of the water everyday, you will have lower nitrates. Vacuuming up the leftover food and fish poop will go a long way as well.

As far as what is the upper limit of healthy levels for youngin's, I'll leave that to the experts.

[ericatdallas]

Are you doing the bucket method? As soon as I switched away from that, it made no difference whether I was doing 20% or 90% WC except the amount of time (I just walk away, grab a snack, watch some TV, etc).

My take though is, if you're not doing the bucket method, then do more than 50% WC everyday or do it twice a day.

When I did bucket method I did a 25% AM and 50% PM (pain!), now I do a once a day 75-80% daily and my nitrates never hit over 5ppm. I just opened a spreadsheet of 4 months worth of measurements and I only hit over twice - the two days I was at the hospital waiting for the twins to be born (20ppm) and the week I was so busy and didn't change water for 3 days (10ppm Nitrates but 2 ppm Ammonia!).

I don't know what the upper-limit is, but the goal is to keep it as low as reasonably possible. Look into more efficient WC methods... if not, you're going to get burned out of WCs and turned off.

[pennex1]

yes bucket method. It gets tiring but i know water change is very important in the health of these little guys. Didn't setup the garden hose yet but soon. I think the most wc i ever did was 75%. I get a little nervous changing so much water at once. I have a habit of adding 20ml of stress coat when doing more than 50% of wc. I am lucky as the water quality in my area is very very good out of the tap. i know many people in this forum have aged water but the breeder where i bought the little Discus from is local and said that we have very good water and no need to age it.

[ericatdallas]

I prefer two to three small WC (~33-50%) to one large one... allows me to vacuum up the junk. If you can do a quick WC method or have a lot of time on your hands, that might be the way to go.

I do one very large one now partially because I have a little 15 month old daughter pulling the hoses when I'm not looking. So I have to restrict myself to WC when she's sleeping or other wise occupied which is usually at night since mornings she is the one that wakes me up and afternoons I have to go to work.

I'm not an expert either, but I would try to keep my nitrates lower than what you have it. I always find varying info in regards to nitrate levels. The consensus though is the lower the better.

[Eddie]

Big changes daily.