High nitrates

[griff5499]

My tap water is showing 20-30ppm of nitrates. Should I use distilled, purified or ro? and what is the difference between these?
Thanks

 

[dcutl002]

My tap water is showing 20-30ppm of nitrates. Should I use distilled, purified or ro? and what is the difference between these?
Thanks

I would not use distilled water. It is lacking essential minerals that the fish need. You could try SeaChem Prime, you could use bottled (5 gallon bottles) drinking water, or get a Nitrate filter. Aquaripure

 

[venymae]

As stated before you can use bottled "spring water" or just cut your water with RO/distilled to reduce the nitrates while still getting the proper minerals. Also, you can get/make nitrate scrubbers. Might be worth looking into. Plants also help, especially ones that take up nutrients directly though the water column. Good luck!

 

[Autumnsky]

My tap water is showing 20-30ppm of nitrates. Should I use distilled, purified or ro? and what is the difference between these?
Thanks

Distilled is bad for fw fish from what I understand.

Purified is from where ever the bottler is from, from the city water run through a purifier.

RO is Reverse Osmosis, better Google it to get the scientific data, but it takes out most all of the bad stuff. Then for a FW tank you would need to re-mineralize the water so it would have what your fish and plants need to thrive.

Maybe try spring water. How big is your tank?

Here is some good basic info, though it is from a store which might want you to buy something, lol
Proper Aquarium Water Quality: What is Reverse Osmosis Water? Basic FAQ's

 

[Phranque]

Distilled & RO water are both purified water, just different processes to get there. You do not want to use pure distilled/RO water for FW tanks, as both filtering processes remove everything from the water, including carbonates, which are required as buffers to maintain pH. If those are absent, you will likely have a pH crash.
You can cut your tap water with filtered water to reduce the nitrates, but I'd recommend getting a Kh (Carbonate hardness) test kit so you know hard your water is.... the higher the Kh, the more you can cut it & reduce the nitrates. For example, my tap water is 16 Kh, and you want to maintain at least (roughly) 4 Kh to prevent a pH crash, so I can safely cut my tap water with 75% RO water should I need to, but luckily, my tap is nearly 0 nitrates.

 

[NewToFish1989]

I would not use distilled water. It is lacking essential minerals that the fish need. You could try SeaChem Prime, you could use bottled (5 gallon bottles) drinking water, or get a Nitrate filter. Aquaripure

Prime does absolutely nothing for nitrates.... have 20ppm in my tap water and prime didn't help one bit.

I use Seachem De Nitrate in my Fluval canister filter and went from 40ppm to 5ppm in a week works really well.

 

[griff5499]

My tank is a 36gal bow front. I was using purified water in 2.5 gal containers. It just got to be a hassel when doing wc. I went back to tap and use seachem prime. If I can get water from Sparkle delivered I would consider that.

 

[BBradbury]

Your Tank's Water Chemistry

My tap water is showing 20-30ppm of nitrates. Should I use distilled, purified or ro? and what is the difference between these?
Thanks

Hello griff...

Here's a simple answer. Don't fret over the chemistry of your tap water. It's not important. Just maintain stable water conditions by removing and replacing half the water every one to two weeks. No slacking.

B

 

[Rivercats]

It is very important to know the readings in tap water be they ammonia, nitrite, nitrates, phosphates, etc. When you have poor tap water readings it's good to take action as large weekly WC's won't remedy the problem.