Hi All, I just wanted peoples advice on nitrate removers. I recently put one of fluval nitrate removers in my filter and a little while after my Oscars started to become very pale, breath heavy and sit in the corner. I straight away took it out and did a water change and he was back to his usual self. Has anyone had any experience in using these products? I do weekly water changes aswell so not like its a substitute but as an helpful add on.

the only thing i am sure about nitrite/nitrate remover are plenty of rooted
plants that comes in contact with the tank water, either direct or indirect.
in one of my experiment, i had grown oscar with a lot of vegetation for 17
months without water change.

as to those gadgets, sorry, i have no experience and i don't believe in them.

i have used them before, never had any problems. i didn't put them in the filter but hung the bag in the tank next to the filter input. I wouldn't put them in the filter as they need recharging so playing around with the filter is too risky. I would say this is where you had a problem, upsetting the filter media and maybe loosing a small amount of your cycle.?? i take it you washed them before putting into the tank too?? To be honest I didn't see a great improvment they are not cheap I bought about £40 worth. went back to water changing. and dropped some of my stock ))))

i have tried the fluval nitrate remover for a period of 3 months and though it did reduce the nitrates in my tank i still had to do the same percentage of water changes to keep my tank where i like it to be. bottom line is that it does work but with large messy cichlids it wasnt cost effective to continue its use.

I am a big fan of spending money to reduce the amount of time I need to spend working - more time to enjoy my fish.

For this reason i will shortly be purchasing a denitrator.

Will post experiences when I get it

okey then...we will wait for your feedback.

but for me, i'd rather stick to my nitrite/nitrate remover like this.


those tiny roots sucked all bad nitrite and nitrate

necromancer4 wrote:


i couldn't agree more, all the "time and money" i spent F*CKEN around buying this buying that, tryn to keep the water clean, i should of spent the bucks and bought a decent filter in the first place, i haven't had a water problem since thanks to the "aqua one 2400"