High Nitrates in tap water

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

jackdp

Aquarium Advice FINatic
Joined
Oct 19, 2002
Messages
869
Location
Lancaster, PA
Our well water here in C. Pa is very hard and high in nitrates. I have a RO/DI filter for my reef tank and just recently setup a planted 15 gallon tank with 3 dwarf puffers and 3 oto algae eaters. Question...what is a good number to shoot for of nitrates in the tank. I test the tank water with a Seachem nitrite/nitrate kit and the nitrates are off the scale even with a 2:1 dilution. The tank uses stock lighting for a 15gal with a 5500K NO bulb. The only thing I dose is Aq Pharm Leaf Zone (iron and pottasium?) Substrate is gravel only.. plants in now are..Wisteria, Java Fern, Water Sprite, Cabomba, crypt and a mystery sword plant. Guess I'm wondering if the high nitrates are okay with the plants and fish, I plan on diluting the well water with DI water to get a medium softness and that will dilute the nitrates...or is it better to use the hard tapwater with the high nitrates? I know the nitrates will benefit the plants but aren't they bad for the fish? Should I be dosing anything else? I've never done the heavily planted tank thing before. TIA Below is a pic before the Cobomba was added. One water sprite plant is turning brown (I think the stem is broken or rotted) other wise everything seems to be doing well.

site1045.jpg
 
most FW fish aren't very sensitive to nitrates. even in SW, its more about algae growth (since you have higher lighting) and the inverts being affected by NO3.

In FW tanks, 10-20ppm of nitrate is an acceptable range.

you don't have enough light to really need to worry about dosing any fertilizers though.
 
what is "off the charts"??? :?

if you increase your lights and add CO2 your plants will use up the no3 :D
 
I'd keep it below 40ppm. Shoot for 20ppm, but your wisteria will soak up the nitrAtes like no tomorrow if given ample other nutrients. I do hope your RO water has very low nitrAtes in it (if drinking) as nitrAte poisoning is possible in humans with higher levels (especially prevalent in infants).

Get that dead/dying wisteria bunch out. The stuff is a weed and will grow like one. You don't need a "wounded" plant in the tank that can allow for algae growth, especially one that isn't expensive/slow grower/experiment/etc.
 
Ya, when tested last year, our well water had 17mg/l Nitrate-Nitrogen in it...that's 7 mg/l over the state EPA limit. After installing the RO, I couldn't detect any with a Lowes home water test kit. It's not easy to get rid of nitrates in well water, RO is the cheapest easiest solution. We don't drink that much water anyways, mostly use the well water for cooking and wife's coffee. I need to test the RO water again though, its been over a year. Thanks for the help.
 
Heck for a planted tank 17ppm is PERFECT. If you do weekly water changes (even better would be once every 3-4 days) you might never have to dose nitrAte. That's a nice free way to avoid dosing a fert.
 
Back
Top Bottom