the product algone Water Clarifier & Nitrate Remover

[nemo14]

Has anyone use this product if so can you leave your feedback as to how it work for you good or bad. Thinking about trying it and check on line reviews and getting a 50 / 50 on pros and cons.

Thanks everyone.

[TLe041]

I'm not a fan of using additives for this purpose. I suggest doing large water changes and adding a packet of Seachem Purigen into your filter. You'll get pristine water in no time.

[nemo14]

 Hello TLe042 !

Thanks for your reply i do my weekly water change at 50 % and still have high nitrate levels i feed small amounts twice a day and skip feeding one day a week. Purigen will give this a try instead and i like how you can recharge it.

Thank for the tip.

[Mike L]

What is your water source and what do you consider high readings. What are you using for testing. We might be able to steer you in a different direction.
I would test your water before the water change and then about 2-3 hours after the change to see how much is being removed by that 50%. If your starting at say 40 ppm and dropping to 20ppm with a 50% change your starting out at the recommended high end of 20ppm and you never gain a foothold. You should strive for 5-10ppm after a water change. If it goes up past 20ppm your either overfeeding ,overstocked, or both. That is not necessarily a bad thing as cichlid keepers often do that but they compensate with more frequent changes ie every 4-5 days rather then every7 days. I would cut back your feeding to what they eat in 3-minute once daily with maybe 1 day where they get 2 feedings. I have gone on 1 week holiday and the fish get little or no food depending on who is housesitting. No adverse effects at all.
Mike

[Kelly]

I hear people testing their levels as parts per million/ ppm, what do you use to do these tests. I use an API test kit to check my levels, clearly not as accurate.

[Mike L]

Most use a pi kits.  The colours are in ppm. I have looked around for other kits with little success.  Salties have other options though.

[nemo14]

Hello everyone !

I'm using Nutrafin test kits that reads from o.o to 110.0 mg/l i tested the tap water and i'm getting less than 5 ppm so i know my water source is ok. my ammonia and nitrite is at o so i know that my tank has a good colony of anaerobic bacteria because the readings are at 0 and the nitrates are very high and that's is at the end of the nitrogen cycle. when i do a 50% water change i will have 15 to 20 ppm of nitrates and i test the next day and i'm back up to well over 60 ppm again   

I only feed once a day in the morning and only what they can eat and once a week i don't feed them at all. they are eating cobalt aquatics flake foods as well as O.S.I Spirulina flake foods. Then twice a week i feed frozen blood worms ,frozen brine shrimp.

I have 29 fish in a 150 us gallon tank. the fish are 10 black long fin tetras, 4 Bolivian rams,6 German blue rams, 1 small black angel fish,3 flying foxes, 2 small Chinese algae eaters, 3 real small Cory cats.  I don't think that's over stalking the tank but i could be wrong.

all my other tanks are ok because i have African chiclid tank and you are right they are packed in together to keep the aggression down and i do a weekly water change and the tank has no problems could it be because the P.H is much higher 8.2 not like the tank that i have high nitrate in the P.H is at 6.8 then when the CO2 is on it drops to 6.4. and the tank has lot of plant life and i know the plant take in nitrates to some degree but even with the plants i still have high nitrate levels.

I'm leaning towards maybe my Slow Release Substrate Fertilizer tabs not deep enough in the Eco complete.

Well thanks for your time everyone and your advice if you need more info on something let me know. 

[nemo14]

A better picture of the tank

[nemo14]

Oh one more thing i forgot to add i just recently added Almond leaves and took out my charcoal media and replaced it with Pura Amazon media to lower the P.H of the tank for my fish. I don't think it's the cause of my problem because i had high nitrates before i added it to the tank but i could be wrong.

[mm]

Is that a 150 gallon???

If your tank is going from 20ppm (same as mg/l) to 60 ppm overnight after a water change I would say something is leaching nitrates or ammonia. Could be the fertilizer tabs (how many did you add?) or the eco complete.

Also, something does not add up. If you start with 60ppm and do a 50% water change you should end with 30ppm, not 15-20. Perhaps your nitrtaes are around 40? How high do they get after a few days without water change?

[nemo14]

hello mm !

Well i added about 10 Slow Release Substrate Fertilizer tabs. This is a picture of a nitrate test after water change and then the a few days later. you could be right might be 40 ppm the nutrafin test kit for nitrates seems to be off on the color chart. colors aren't even close to the color chart.     

[wolfiewill]

This problem has been associated with substrate ferts before. Have you tested for phosphate? If it follows the same pattern, your substrate tabs may in fact be the issue. See:

http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/general-aquarium-plants-discussions/119682-slow-release-substrate-fertilizer-tabs.html

[nemo14]

Hey wolfiewill!

My phosphates where also high but now in check but my nitrate is still high even with 50% water change. Nitrite is 0 the tank is only going on 3 months now so i think the tank has cycled BUT my anaerobic bacteria colony is still to low to reduce the nitrates. I'm checking into bio home ultra media that clams to reduce the nitrites and nitrates because the way it's made with cindered glass with large surface area to colonizes both aerobic and anaerobic bacteria. I have two large canister filters on tank if i go this route i'll do one filter at a time let it build up good colony of bacteria then 3 to 4 months later do the other filter to make sure the system don't crash. When my nitrates levels go down to 5 to 10 ppm i will stop using algone product i prefer not to use chemicals as much as i can and rely on the bacteria to do its job.

[wolfiewill]

My phosphates where also high but now in check

How high was the phosphate result?

[/quote].....BUT my anaerobic bacteria colony is still to low to reduce the nitrates. [/quote]

Nothing reduces nitrates except water changes and plant which consume it. Anaerobic bacteria will make your tanks smell like really, really bad, so you don't want them. That's why high oxygen rich aquariums are important. Here is a good explanation of what is needed to convert ammonia to nitrite and nitrite to nitrate:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrifying_bacteria.

Are you having trouble with algae?

[nemo14]

Hello Wolfiewill!

Well my phosphates where at 5.0 now they are at a respectable 1.5 to 2.0 the only problem that i have whith alge is the green spot algae on my slow growing plants like Anubis that's why i increasing P04 slowly until no more green spot algae.but other than that the tank is looking good other plants seems to doing well they are growing at a good rate. but like i  said the only thing that seems to be out of wack is my nitrate even with large water changes at 50 %. I bought 11 lbs of bio home ultimate. It was made to support both good bacteria aerobic and anaerobic bacteria. And it's the anaerobic bacteria that lowers nitrates over time. We will see  i will let you know in a few months. I will do one canister filter then wait a few months then do the other canister filter.   

[nemo14]

This is what the tank looks like today.