Help with pre-existing nitrates in my tap water

[Venturer4life]

*Short version*:
Just moved to a new state and took my fish with me (South American cichlids). I need help to find a product to filter my new tap water to remove nitrates. My tap has 20ppm nitrates to start with and I really would like to get it as close to zero as possible. Not interested in using RO water. Prefer to use a filter media over an additive. Current chemistry: pH: 7.8, kH: 3 drops (? sorry, forgot value), ammonia: 1.0ppm (straight from faucet. Am doing fish-less cycle so I'm not worried about it at the moment), Nitrites: 0.0ppm, Nitrates: 20ppm (again, nitrates straight out of faucet. Tank not stocked yet, still cycling). Currently have not added anything other water conditioner and charcoal filters.

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*very long winded version, sorry! I was very tired when I wrote it!*:

Hello advice givers, I am an experienced fish keeper, but this seemed to be the only applicable topic for my question. I do fully understand the nitrogen cycle and all that jazz, but I have encountered an issue that I do not have an answer for.

I just moved from South Florida to North Indiana, and brought some of my fish with me (the special ones that really are like pets and I could not bare to part with. Others were lucky just community fish that were easily re-homed). I made my travel set up so that I would have a good amount of time to get my new tank (trashed the old one as it was 20+ years old and also a pain to move accross the US as we packed and drove ourselves). This was a good move, cause once I arrived and tested my tap water here, it was obvious that I had my job cut out for me. My old tap was honestly as good as tap gets, so I have never had the need to mess with water chemistry beyond the basics, and I normally prefer stability over "perfect" water.

My new tap water has very high kH, the pH was litterally off the charts, there is around 1ppm of ammonia already present, and around 20ppm of nitrates present (no nitrites present). FYI, I am using a brand new API liquid master kit as well as API liquid gH/kH kit. Tested on water in Florida for accuracy and it was accurate compared to my old kit. At first, my mind went to switching to using RO water, but after educating myself further on it, it is not really something I want to do (though I might use it for water changes in the future, but to use it to fill my entire tank was just too much time, effort, and money). Based on advice from my new LFS (specialty store, not francise) and advice from old threads, I decided to just go ahead and put my tank together with all substrate and hardware, fill it, and let it gas off for a couple of days while I brought it up to temperature (80 degrees F, keeping South American cichlids). I did not do anything special to the tank other than add water conditioner (API stress coat is my personal preference) and put in my charcoal filters.

After a couple days, I tested the water to get my base chemistry to work with. The kH significantly decreased, the pH fell to around 7.8 (which I can work with if it does not fall further), there is still 1.0ppm of ammonia, 20ppm of nitrates, and no nitrites (which I expected, as it is a new, uncycled tank). My concern is really with the nitrates. I would like to find a product that filters them out rather than an additive that binds them, but still stays present in The water. I contacted seachem to see what they recommended and they said to use their de*nitrate media, but the flow has to me under 50GPH for it to work at it's full potential. My filters run at 350GPH and I hate to have to hang ugly bags of media in the tank where it would be visible. Plants are also not an option in this tank as my south american cichlids devour any plant, and trust me, I have tried them all. Anyone have any advice? Feel free to ask for any info I might have left out.

Thank you so much!!!

 

[King Fisher]

If you can afford it, mix 50/50 tap and RO water. You could even mix tap and bottled spring water. What size tank do you have? If you have a large tank it might be worth hooking up an RO system to your sink.

 

[Venturer4life]

It is a 55gal. I considered doing RO in the beginning, but the amount of time it would take to make 55gal of RO water, the amount of waste water created, the affect of my water bill, the additives needed to re-mineralize it, the fact that it could lead to unstable water conditions if I don't keep a perfect routine, and a bunch more reasons lead me to decide to just try to figure out my tap. Also, if I use 50% RO water, that still takes down the nitrates to 10ppm and that is in a completely empty tank, once populated, it will obviously add more nitrates on top.

 

[King Fisher]

I believe those under the sink RO systems have a 20 or 25 gallon reservoir. I've got some experience with them and they work well.

Waste water??

Water bill should be the same as if you used straight up tap water since it's hooked into your sink line.

I'm talking 50/50 tap and RO not straight RO. 10 ppm is not really bad as long as your tank doesn't go over 40 ppm before your weekly water change. In all reality if you are adding over 30 ppm nitrates in a week you probably got an overstocked tank.

 

[Venturer4life]

I read that you end up getting very little RO water compared to what you are using. So say you need 25 gallons of RO water, it will take like 3 times that to make it, which is wasting a good amount of water.

And you are right. If my tank did make that much waste, it would be over stocked. It does not make waste that fast, I honestly just don't do weekly water changes and only do them every 2-3 weeks. I do realize that's my issue. I know that if I don't think I can do weekly changes, I just should not keep fish. But I do, and I watch my levels well and I have had very good success over the years. I appoogize for my short comings. My tanks always are between 0-5 ppm and I have very good luck with everything I have and have even bred fish for a small bit sucessfully. Not to mention, all of my other tanks (none of which are set up at the moment due to me moving) are planted tanks and although I do water changes, they run very well on their own. I only have a cooler with 3 s. American cichlids, and a 5 gallon bucket with all of my plants and 2 golden Barb's to produce waste for the plants. All are in good shape. I'm honestly just not comfortable using RO water. Sorry.

 

[King Fisher]

My old RO system pulled water through three sets of RO filters and then dumped into the tank.

Anyhow, I don't really know any other ways to lower nitrates without maybe using chemicals. If you were only getting 5 ppm nitrates out of your fish back in Florida then I wouldn't be concerned with 20 ppm in your water. I also keep SA Cichlids and at day 7 my tank is at 40 ppm. I do weekly 40-50% water changes and my tank is maxed out with fish. I have 0 nitrates in my tap water.

If it were me in your situation I would run your tap water and test the water every few days in the tank, see how long you can go without a water change until you hit 40 ppm. Base your water change schedule off of that.

 

[Venturer4life]

Ok, thanks!

 

[Fresh2o]

You can also try the plant route. There are several terrestrial plants that do fine with their roots in the water (pothos comes to mind). Will not necessarily address the KH or pH, but should help control the nitrates.