Habitat - Indoor :: The Case of the Missing Nitrates

[Paul D]

Just a question about water chemistry here.

I have three sliders — two juveniles and a hatchling (which I found!) — living in a 35 litre tank. When I got the tank, I put in some of their previous tank water to get the bacteria cycle jump-started. After a week and a half or so, I got some water test strips and found the water to be high in both nitrites and nitrates. I assumed my bacterial cultures were nearing maturity, and sure enough, a week later my nitrites were at zero and have stayed there. Surprisingly enough, however, my nitrates are also consistently staying low, close to zero.

I have one of those sword plants in the tank as well, plus a ball of moss. Could those be responsible for using up the nitrates? And if nitrates stay low, can I go longer without changing the water?

I do also have ten neon tetra fish in there as coal mine canaries, so that if the water goes bad, they die first. So far, all 13 of the tank's inhabitants are doing just great.

[mikee]

PD -- The nitrates are what you are supposed to be left with after the mineralization process it over. It is good the nitrites and nitrates are low. However, there are other things to consider with your water and that is dissolved solids. These are the minerals that come in your tap water and what the turtles add to that. They are principally calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, bicarbonates, chlorides and sulfates. These solids do not evaporate out of your water and become concentrated as you add water. The only way you could help that is to use distilled water and that would not be enough as the turtles put in some dissolved solids with their poo and other body parts such as skin and scutes. By having a near balanced tank your water changed will be less often.

[Paul D]

Thanks, Mikee. The tank's mineral content is pretty high, so I do a partial change once a week or so. But since, as you say, nitrates are supposed to be "left over", I'm trying to figure out where they're going and hoping I'm not doing anything wrong.

[BullDog]

I have a small 2gallon tank set up that has more plants than fish (only one ) and the nitrate in that is always zero. I think the plants are very good for cleaning the water. As for how long you can go without changing water, just monitor the nitrates when when they start going up, it's time to do a partial change.

Also, a 35 litre tank is pretty small for 3 turts. It might be time you start thinking about getting a nice big tank (55 gallons min, so that's 200 litres+)

[Paul D]

Well, right now, there's plenty of room for all three turtles to swim around. (I think my tank is 35L, but it could be more.)

Eventually, they'll probably have to move outside, but I'm a little worried about the winters here, since it dips down to about zero.

[SpotsMama]

I think living plants consume a lot of nitrates and that's probably where yours are going. Nice, isn't it? In the last few months some green algae has taken hold on some of the surfaces in Spot's tank and I've noticed the nitrate levels never get as high as they used to, and I think it's because the algae is consuming nitrate.