High Nitrates Emergency

[CT 501]

Hi I have around 40 ppm nitrates, how long can this take to harm my fish and poison them? And cause diseases? Since one of my fishes has a tail nip.

 

[connorlindeman]

Just do a 75% water change every day till it gets down to less then 5ppm. How old is the tank?

 

[Essjay]

And what is the nitrate level in your tap water? That's the lowest you can get the tank nitrate level by water changes alone.

 

[Wills]

40ppm nitrates wont kill your fish in the short term but it will effect their health in the long term. As said above first step is test your tapwater and then from there big water change and filter clean and retest.

If your tap water is high there are a few options like RO water, HMA filters, Nitrate absorbers in your filter or Riparian planting with house plants like Peace Lillys.

Wills

 

[CT 501]

Just do a 75% water change every day till it gets down to less then 5ppm. How old is the tank?

40ppm nitrates wont kill your fish in the short term but it will effect their health in the long term. As said above first step is test your tapwater and then from there big water change and filter clean and retest.

If your tap water is high there are a few options like RO water, HMA filters, Nitrate absorbers in your filter or Riparian planting with house plants like Peace Lillys.

Wills

It can't affect their health in the long term? Like how many days or what? whats long term meaning? My tap water has low nitrates, i fed slight a lot today thats why it got high.

 

[Naughts]

Nitrate above 20ppm causes fish to struggle to function and lowers their immunity.
If there is latent disease in the tank, fish will be more likely to succumb to it when nitrate is high.
If nitrate is high for a long time the fish will have a shortened life.

 

[Valkyrie_Lips]

It can't affect their health in the long term? Like how many days or what? whats long term meaning? My tap water has low nitrates, i fed slight a lot today thats why it got high.

Overfeeding one day won't raise the nitrates to 40 ppm unless you also don't do frequent enough or large enough water changes. I would suggest following the advice of other members and doing larger water changes to remove the nitrates and keep them low. Why risk subjecting your fish to chronically high nitrates which will affect their health when it could be easily prevented? Prevention is key with fish keeping so you're less likely to have to deal with seriously ill fish. You have to decide which is more unpleasant to deal with, water changes or immunocompromised/sick fish.

 

[Essjay]

How often do you do a water change and how much do you change? Infrequent and/or small water changes allow nitrate to build up between water changes.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Here you go

Camargo, Julio & Alonso, Alvaro & Salamanca, Annabella. (2005). Nitrate Toxicity to Aquatic Animals: A Review With New Data for Freshwater Invertebrates. Chemosphere. 58. 1255-67. 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2004.10.044.

Abstract
Published data on nitrate (NO3-) toxicity to freshwater and marine animals are reviewed. New data on nitrate toxicity to the freshwater invertebrates Eulimnogammarus toletanus, Echinogammarus echinosetosus and Hydropsyche exocellata are also presented. The main toxic action of nitrate is due to the conversion of oxygen-carrying pigments to forms that are incapable of carrying oxygen. Nitrate toxicity to aquatic animals increases with increasing nitrate concentrations and exposure times. In contrast, nitrate toxicity may decrease with increasing body size, water salinity, and environmental adaptation. Freshwater animals appear to be more sensitive to nitrate than marine animals. A nitrate concentration of 10 mg NO3-N/l (USA federal maximum level for drinking water) can adversely affect, at least during long-term exposures, freshwater invertebrates (E. toletanus, E. echinosetosus, Cheumatopsyche pettiti, Hydropsyche occidentalis), fishes (Oncorhynchus mykiss, Oncorhynchus tshawytscha, Salmo clarki), and amphibians (Pseudacris triseriata, Rana pipiens, Rana temporaria, Bufo bufo). Safe levels below this nitrate concentration are recommended to protect sensitive freshwater animals from nitrate pollution. Furthermore, a maximum level of 2 mg NO3-N/l would be appropriate for protecting the most sensitive freshwater species. In the case of marine animals, a maximum level of 20 mg NO3-N/l may in general be acceptable. However, early developmental stages of some marine invertebrates, that are well adapted to low nitrate concentrations, may be so susceptible to nitrate as sensitive freshwater invertebrates.

Full paper here https://golias.net/akvaristika/docs/Nitrate toxicity to aquatic animals.pdf

Note the above paper is measuring using the nitrogen scale. On our Total Ion hobby kits like the ones from API and many others, you must multiply the numbers above by 4.42664 to make them equivalent to the typical aquarium test kit. Also 1 mg/l ir equal to 1 ppm.
05 ppm No3-N = 22.1332 ppm
10 ppm NO3-N = 44.2664 ppm
20 ppm NO3-N = 88..5328 ppm

In the states the permissible level of nitrate in drinking water is 10 ppm NO3-N.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Note the above paper is measuring using the nitrogen scale. On our Total Ion hobby kits like the ones from API and many others, you must multiply the numbers above by 4.42664 to make them equivalent to the typical aquarium test kit. Also 1 mg/l ir equal to 1 ppm.
05 ppm No3-N = 22.1332 ppm
10 ppm NO3-N = 44.2664 ppm
20 ppm NO3-N = 88..5328 ppm

In the states the permissible level of nitrate in drinking water is 10 ppm NO3-N.

Thank you so much for including the conversion to the nitrate measurements our test kits use, because I was getting confused!

 

[CT 501]

Overfeeding one day won't raise the nitrates to 40 ppm unless you also don't do frequent enough or large enough water changes. I would suggest following the advice of other members and doing larger water changes to remove the nitrates and keep them low. Why risk subjecting your fish to chronically high nitrates which will affect their health when it could be easily prevented? Prevention is key with fish keeping so you're less likely to have to deal with seriously ill fish. You have to decide which is more unpleasant to deal with, water changes or immunocompromised/sick fish.

Well for me it did, i did a large wc yesterday so yeah, i dont have water condtioner right now that is why i can't water change