Nitrate

[trev1]

I have a pair of moliwe and the nitrate is getting up there. Now they have eggs due for free swimming this Monday. How much of a water change could i do without upsetting the parents?
the nitrate is around 40ppm it says on the dip strip that it is on the higher end of safe but can the babies handle this?

thanks
trev

 

[dfea]

While I don't have the experience with P. taeniatus fry as of yet, my P. pulcher fry never had an issue with water changes. I always match the water parameters and temperature in the new water.

- Dan

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
I'd definitely try and lower the nitrate levels. Your two options are water changes and plants, I like both. At teh moment I'd probably go for 20% water change every day. You may find that your tap water has c. 30ppm nitrate, so either R.O or rainwater may be your best bet.

Long term plants make life so much easier, I use a 10% daily water change (rain water) and heavy planting with "low light" plants Java moss, Java fern, Anubias etc. and a layer of "floaters", usually Salvinia or Amazon Frogbit, when you export them, you export your nitrate. Plants also preferentially take up both ammonia and nitrite before nitrate, so they really are the way forward.

cheers Darrel