High Tap Nitrates

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elliott_001

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Dec 13, 2005
Messages
303
Location
UK
At the moment i am cycling my new tank, all is going well, except for the nitrates. When i first did some water tests, ammonia and nitrites were pretty much non existant, by nitrates were between 50 and 75ppm. I was advised to test my tap water, and found the nitrate level of the tap water is about 50ppm!! Which is causing a small problem in cycling because its more difficult for me to see a rise in nitrate - indicating the completion of the cycle. Also, nitrates this high is uncomfortable for most fish - i think!
Does anyone know any ways i can reduce this? Tomk2 advised to use some distilled water, but said i cant use too much as it lacks micro-nutrients.
Any other suggestions?
 
Are you sure it's 50ppm? That's awfully high for tap water. Did you try taking some to the lfs to have them test it, just to be sure your test kit isn't bad?
 
My tap nitrate level has bad spikes. The day of a water change the tap tested at 120+(EPA limit is 10) I had mixed it 50/50 with R/O water and it still caused a sudden die off--4 previously healthy fish in under 24 hours. The next day it was zero. That was the day I switched to 100% R/O. Our clean water act report never showed any abnormality, and I had no way to prove it, so nothing could be done. Have your lfs test your tap water, then contact the EPA. Test a sample that has been sitting open for 24 hours.
 
Lonewolfblue said:
Are you sure it's 50ppm? That's awfully high for tap water. Did you try taking some to the lfs to have them test it, just to be sure your test kit isn't bad?
Yes, i am sure, i have just tested it again, and its 50ppm. I will take some to my lfs aswell, see what they say. My brother has had an aquarium for a year now, and his fish seem ok, i dont how long the water has been like this, Apocalypse_Gold - you say 'spikes of nitrate' im hoping this is all it is. why should i leave it open for 24hours?
The main problem is in the aquarium the nitrates have risen to between 75 - 100ppm!! I will be doing a water change soon as my cycle is nearly finished, should i leave some water to stand 24hours before doing the change? If the nitrates are high straight out of the tap, then there is something wrong, i shouldnt have to leave it standing for 24hours. thanks for your help
 
I would definately leave some water to stand, also I'd contact the city regarding the water as that is very high and find out if there was some spike. Test your water again after standing for 24 hours before adding it to the tank. If your tap water is going to remain that high consistently, you may have to switch to RO water like Apocalypse_Gold. You can do a water change before the end of your cycle btw, just don't gravel vac much.
 
I am just relizing i have a similar problem with my well water and I was told it could be evidence of high bactiria in my water so I am presently looking into a uv treatment setup and then a high end carbom block filter to remove the leftover nitrates and other stuff but i am waiting on areply from multipure to see if there filter will do what I need. If I find a feesiable solution I will write back and let you know.
 
I wasnt thinking along the lines of using uv lighting, i would like to resolve the problem using distilled or RO water, or just hope the tap nitrate level drops on the near future! But i'd like to know what you find anyhow. I may go and ask what they do at my lfs tomorrow, i will let you know.
 
elliot -

you let the tap water stand overnight to get an accurate pH reading of your tap water. Co2 will equilibrate between the atmosphere and in the water overnight. Low C02 tap water and nuetral water with low buffering capacity would see the pH decrease a tiny bit due to the absorption of atomosphereic C02 (pure water has a pH of about 6.8? due to C02 absorption), High C02 tap water would increase a tiny bit in pH as C02 diffused out of the standing tap water. The aeration and movement in your tank would accomplish this much quicker than overnight, so that there is no reason to let your tap water sit overnight before a water change. If you have chlorinated water, letting it sit for one or two days will allow the chlorine to diffuse off without adding a dechlorinator, but this does not work with chloramines. Aeration greatly speeds the elimination of chlorine.

I am not aware of any effect on nitrate testing by letting the tap water stand.

I never asked you on your other thread - Do you have municipal or well (ground) water? Previously, I have never heard of nitrates that high unless it was well water. But it looks like Apocalypse Gold has.
 
Apocalypse Gold-

How does that RO thing work? Is it difficult to keep the resins charged/working? How much waste water does it generate versus clean water for the tank? Is it costly to operate? Do essential micronutrients and elements get depleted?

A while ago, for a SW tank, I had a cheap pass-through Ion exchange? filter once, I would only make 10 or 20 gallons and the resins would change color indicating expired, so I gave up and went to distillled.
 
I dont know why i was told to test my tap water for nitrates after letting it stand for 24hours, but i assumed it would have some affect, otherwise there would be no point.

Today i went to the lfs and enquired about the nitrate level in our tap water..he said that its not too bad, it wont affect the fish much, if at all, but said i should use an rechargeable exchange resin if i want to lower the nitrates. So i bought a product called 'Nitra-zorb' - dont know how well it will work, but im giving it a go!
 
ok, sorry this could be a bit confusing :?

I have been testing my water parameters every second day since adding fish (maybe a bit excessive, as they seem very stable), but regarding the nitrates, they have been dropping. The ammonia and nitrate have remained on zero since adding fish after the cycle. When i started out (first added water) the nitrates were generally between 50 and 75ppm! The test i did today read about 10ppm.

I have been using a tablet test kit from the start (2 tablets in 10ml of water, crush a mix, wait 10mins). But today i used my new test kit which is a droplet type (10 drops from 2 different bottles into 5ml water, shake and wait 5mins). Also it is from a master kit (original was just a nitrate kit)

The last test i did with the tablet kit was 2 days ago (3rd jan) and it read around 25 - 50ppm.

Todays tank test with new kit - NO3 - 10ppm
Tap nitrates test with new kit - NO3 - between 10 and 20ppm
(tap nitrates with original kit were about 75 - 100ppm!!)

This is kinda making me think that i had a crap test kit from the start! DARN! The new kit seems to be much more realistic.

Is it a generally known thing that tablet test are not very good?

Sorry its so long.
 
Another thing - does anybody else find it quite hard reading the results from the nitrate tests? The colours on my colour card go from yellow (0ppm) to light orange, dark orange, red, red, red, red(160ppm)!!! Its so hard sometimes to match the colours!! And they always say hold it infront of the white card to read, but if you press it onto the card it looks darker than if you hold it just infront of the card, but not touching it! ??? :) thanks for the help
 
Well, I would think that the tablet test was way off. I once had a powder reagent test kit for my SW tank, the powders were supposed to stay fresh longer than liquid reagents. Hey Waaiiiittt a minute! Are you sure your tablet test kit is for FRESHWATER? Chloride ions interfere with a nitrate test by lowering the measured amount. Thus, a SW nitrate test is calibrated much higher to compensate for the lowering effect of the chloride in SW. A SW nitrate test will yeild a result at least twice as high in fresh water. So....., your tablet test kit might not be crap, it might have been for SW? If it isn't for SW, then it is crap.

http://home.comcast.net/~tomstank/tomstank_files/page0018.htm
 
hmmm, interesting, my guess is, its crap. The tablet test kit is 'for use in all freshwater and all marine aquariums'. The fact that it is combined surely means...its crap, going by what you are saying about chloride ions affecting results. I should never have bought the darn thing!! :x haha
 
Just wanted to jump in here for a comment. I also have between 10-20ppm of nitrAte, but like you have a hard time to tell exactly where it lies due to the color strip....I didn't catch in your thread whether you are on public or well water. I'm on public and was concerned at the level.

The Gov. set limit is 10ppm for nitrAte-nitrogen (not sure exactly what this is, but mine tests for nitrAte only) and 47ppm for nitrAte. For a normal healthy human we can do fine at these levels. The concern is of infants. Infants digestive systems contain a bacteria that is the reverse of what our tanks have, that is they convert nitrAte to nitrIte. As you know, nitrIte is a competition binder of oxygen on hemoglobin, and can cause suffocation of fish. Same thing with these infants. My next door neighbor has a 4 1/2month old, and my wife is expecting in June. We will be switching to bottled water or some other way of purification to prevent this (unless we can get the township to do something, but since its below the legal limit, I'm doubtful).

If you check out my thread on the last page or two (titled Cycle starting, or something like that) I have a link talking about nitrAte poisoning. It's worth a read.

HTH,

justin
 
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