BallinCrew10
Aquarium Advice FINatic
Yea it seems to me like they def need new filters for their ro/di unit. See if they'll refund your money or give you fresh water WITHOUT nitrates lol
Kurt_Nelson said:Just casually go in and ask to see a TDS reading of their RO/DI water. If they don't even have a TDS meter to do it for you, then you can gracefully point out that the water they're selling has 40ppm nitrates in it when you get it home. Two things that will do... (1) establish whether the source water is the culprit, and (2) if it is, then the discussion will probably end right there! I can't imagine any LFS trying to argue that 40ppm out of an RO/DI is acceptable.
Before getting toxic on the LFS, you should probably make sure it's indeed their water, and not contamination from your buckets or something that happened to the water once it left their shop.
For inverts and corals it depends but in general they are all sensative to a high level of nitrates. I would say 40 ppm is pushing the absolute max. I could be wrong as I'm sure some species can tolerate it more than others. I had a hitchhiking emerald crab survive my cycle, but 40 is very high.