Wayne487
Aquarium Advice Activist
I just tested my tap water and the trates are through the roof what can I do to reduce them? Even if I do a water test on my tanks I'm not going To get a good reading I don't know what to do!
That seems very high. Mine out of the tap is 10-20 ppm. I planted my 55 gallon tank (about half the tank) and now it stays around 5 ppm. Perhaps heavily planting with anarchis and water wisteria (both reported to be especially good at this) would help. I just used a bunch of inexpensive sword plants. Keep us informed. This is an interesting situation.
So your tank is >60ppm nitrates ? There's not so much thing to do when dealing with 60 ppm nitrates in the tap...
Maybe you can use grocery water ? I heard about products that reduce nitrates, but in your case, it's extreme high !
Are you using paper test strips or do you have a liquid testing kit?
Firstly, if you don't already have an "API Master Kit", that is what you need to buy. Better accuracy than strips, and not expensive.
If you still get shoddy results, you could take a sample of your water and have it tested by a company. Perhaps a local pool shop would be good for that.
I have the API TEST kit
I was going to say 29 ppm seems too high and the fact that it doesn't give them any concern is surprising.
I have almost all from API: GH, KH, PH, NH3+NH4, NO2, NO3, PO4.
PO4: Can't make a match between sample and color chart
NO2: Never had a reading (maybe I never tested when I had nitrites...)
NO3: Must shake bottle #2 like hell
All others: Accurate.
If your water supplier say you at 30ppm and you read 60ppm, then take your NO3 test reading and always divide result by 2.
29 ppm seems high for tap anyway, I have 0 in my tap.
Yeah I will divide by 2 in future but does that also apply to tank readings for nitrates??
As I said on the other reply I've been told the law is no higher than 50ppm before they have to act on it
Yes, divide all your NO3 readings by 2. In the tank too.