High Nitrate

[sarah_]

I have high Nitrate in my tank -but it comes out the tap like that. I have trouble matching it to the api test colourcard a bit, It's a bright but quite dark orangey red so somewhere between 40 and 80ppm I guess although the limit for tapwater is supposed to be 50ppm and on my water website it says 30ppm for my area which is clearly rubbish. I've done tank and tap tests next to each other to compare and they are pretty identical.

I have a couple of live plants but can't really fit anymore in. The only time the nitrates went down a bit was during cycling when I got masses of brown algae and just let it grow but clearly that's not an option.

So any cheap suggestions what I can do about it? I'm only doing this on a small scale, I can't justify spending loads on a water filter system. The one thing i've started doing is using prime since it says it detoxifies some of the nitrate, does anyone know if the Nitrate stays detoxified and i'm guessing it would only help with a small amount. Can I add a small amount daily to the tank or can you use too much?

Can I use a percentage of bottled mineral water in the tank to bring it down a bit?

 

[KkAaNnEe]

Im not sure but i think Nitrate is only reduced by water changes and/or live plants...

 

[Tizer]

Unfortunately Nitrates are something you dont have much control over if they come out of your tap water relatively high. You could buy a couple of big 25litre jerry cans and take them down to the local fish shop and buy some RO water which will have near zero Nitrate in it. Use that to do a water change and your tank will slowly lower in Nitrates.

jerry Can £7, 25 Litres of RO water, £2. And a jerry can is for life ;D

Plants can help too, but that route risks algae and more learning.

If it helps my tank runs at around 60ppm for nitrates, its a long term killer, unlike ammonia and nitrite, which can kill within hours if the readings are high and no im not concerned at 60ppm.

 

[KkAaNnEe]

Unfortunately Nitrates are something you dont have much control over if they come out of your tap water relatively high. You could buy a couple of big 25litre jerry cans and take them down to the local fish shop and buy some RO water which will have near zero Nitrate in it. Use that to do a water change and your tank will slowly lower in Nitrates.

jerry Can £7, 25 Litres of RO water, £2. And a jerry can is for life ;D

Plants can help too, but that route risks algae and more learning.

If it helps my tank runs at around 60ppm for nitrates, its a long term killer, unlike ammonia and nitrite, which can kill within hours if the readings are high and no im not concerned at 60ppm.

Only problem maybe that RO is very unstable, the PH tends to be way too low and there is a lack of trace elements in the water, you could use a small amount but be cautious it may cause more harm than good

 

[Tizer]

RO will be fine for a weekly water change, but yes, you would do 50% RO and 50% tap water. If you keep fish in 100% RO you have to start adding all sorts of other supplements.

 

[erk628]

The cheapest fix is to get a lot of live plants

 

[StandbySetting]

The cheapest fix is to get a lot of live plants

Unfortunately that isn't true, at the highest of lighting intensities a fully planted tank is only capable of utilising approximately 5ppm of nitrate per day, most tanks will be around 1-2ppm a day, and they wont have a very significant effect.

Nitrate test kits aren't accurate, and nitrates aren't dangerous until you levels of around 400ppm for most species, which is unlikely to happen anyway, so it's really not worth worrying about.

 

[sarah_]

The cheapest fix is to get a lot of live plants

Unfortunately that isn't true, at the highest of lighting intensities a fully planted tank is only capable of utilising approximately 5ppm of nitrate per day, most tanks will be around 1-2ppm a day, and they wont have a very significant effect.

Nitrate test kits aren't accurate, and nitrates aren't dangerous until you levels of around 400ppm for most species, which is unlikely to happen anyway, so it's really not worth worrying about.

The thing is I am loosing fish, the tank was unstocked but cycled and I added 4 white clouds and lost them all within 48 hours, No Ammonia or Nitrite the high Nitrates is the only thing I can think of. I thought they may have been a poor batch so got 4 from somewhere else and only got 2 left. Not sure what else I can do.

 

[StandbySetting]

What's the temperature of your tank, other tank mates?

 

[sarah_]

What's the temperature of your tank, other tank mates?

It's room temp, no other fish. It's a small 22L that I just wanted 5 or so white clouds in. I tried fish in cycling about 6 weeks ago and it didn't go well, lost them at about 4 weeks but at least that lot lived that long. Changed to fishless cycling, was cycled going from 4ppm to 0 Ammonia and Nitrite in 12 hours, removed lots of brown algae, did thorough gravel vac and down to gravel water change. Dosed again for couple of days to check still cycled, added fish. Died within 48 hours, were quite small fish so thinking bad batch did gravel vac and down to gravel water change again, added ammonia to check still being removed, added 4 from different shop, still lost 2.

 

[StandbySetting]

You did acclimatise and everything? It could be the the supply of white clouds in your area aren't very hardy, have you tried another species? 22L Is a tad small for white clouds in my opinion, they're active minnows and will appreciate more space, if you're able to add a small heater you could go for some small rasbora's or danio's

 

[sarah_]

You did acclimatise and everything? It could be the the supply of white clouds in your area aren't very hardy, have you tried another species? 22L Is a tad small for white clouds in my opinion, they're active minnows and will appreciate more space, if you're able to add a small heater you could go for some small rasbora's or danio's

I did acclimatise yes. I did wonder whether it could be a problem in general in my region, a 3rd shop had there's removed from sale in quarantine because they'd had "a bad batch in".

I think I may also try contacting the water company to see if there's anything going on with our water, I know a couple of weeks ago our water was off overnight because somewhere in the vicinity they were moving the water main. I guess this could cause the bad quality, and god knows what else might be in it at higher than normal levels.