No wonder I lost so many Bettas :(

[cookiedough]

Just found out that our tap water which is well water, and is almost off the chart for nitrates. We have an r/o system for drinking and cooking water but have never used that for my betta tanks.

I've FINALLY decided to figure out for myself and stop listening to the misinformation I've been getting at the lfs, so I'm cycling a 5 gallon for the very first time (fishless) and know that I have to maintain it with weekly PWCs. How am I supposed to keep the nitrates in check once the tank is finished with tap water that is full of nitrates?? Our r/o makes water very slowly so it would be a royal pain to use that water, and I've also heard that the r/o also removes minerals from the water that the fish need.

The only solution I can see is to do the PWCs with half r/o and half tap. Anyone see any other solutions?
Thanks for any helpful advice!

 

[Cactuspixie]

50:50 RO and tap sounds good. You could also add some floating plants or moss to absorb some nitrates. There are also rechargeable filter mediums that will remove nitrates (purigen, hypersorb etc)

 

[cookiedough]

Cactuspixie, thanks for the great ideas! I have plants, should have mentioned but no moss so I'll look for that and the filters

 

[Demonknight]

for such a small tank you could fill a 5 gal bucket with water and a few stem feeding plants...let it sit a few days/week and use that water for the change out and just top it off...been trying to do this here for my big tanks to top it off when it evaporates off enough

 

[Mebbid]

Don't bother with moss, it isn't a fast enough grower to have an impact on water quality. You could however get a bunch of water sprite and hook some clip on shop lights on the side of a bucket and leave it. Or another option would be to use a small clean unused trash can with the water sprite and clip light and just keep refilling it when you do water changes


Water sprite grows REALLY FAST and works well as a floating plant. It should absorb any nutrients in the water very well.

The shop lights can be bought for about $8 each. Get the big ones and you can fit some powerful CFL in them.