Nitrates

[Loko17]

I have a 10 gallon tank and last week i checked the water and the nitrates were WAY up, so I've been doing water changes every other day since and IT WILL NOT GO DOWN. Anyone know how to get the nitrates down or if i keep doing water changes every other day will it eventually level out? Any help would be great.

 

[catfish_mad]

hi, what type of water are you using (eg tap water). coz i use a water butt to catch the rain of my roof then use that water as there's no chemicals in rain water, do a 10% water change every day for a week then it should be ok, but you have to keep doing the water change every 1 week or 2. i do one every week just to be safe.........the tank will oxigenate the new water to the level required within 24hours if you use a air pump then it should be fine

 

[andywg]

Oxygenate the water? The water will contain dissolved oxygen anyway, whether from the tap or rain or RO. the colder the water the higher the concentration of dissolved O2 (which is noticeable by the presence of many bubbles the first time you heat a new tank up)

It is possible your tap water has a high nitrate reading, in which case you will never lower the nitrates through normal water changes. In such a situation your options are distilled water, RO water, or rain water.

 

[Loko17]

So what yall are saying is if i put much oxygen in the water the nitrates will go down? But anyways my tap water, I will test to see if it has a high nitrate reading and post if it does or doesnt. thanks for all the help.

(edit) Just tested my tap water and there are no nitrates or nitrites in it at all so its safe to use in my tank. I guess I'll just do a 10 percent water change everyday and see if it evens out. And while we were on the subject of dissolved oxygen, is there a such thing as too much oxygen in the water? Just curious

 

[andywg]

No, oxygen will not lower the nitrates. My question was to catfish_mad trying to figure out how (s)he thought the oxygen levels of the water were being affected.

It is in theory to have too much dissolved oxygen, but you cannot get it without really trying. Most tanks have absolutely nothing to fear from this.

Good news on the tap water. If the pH is similar to your tank, you could start off with larger changes (20-30%) until the nitrates are lower and then lower the percantage of each change.

Also, are you sure the nitrate test kit was working. Sometimes kits go our of whack or give strange readings and it may be that your tank isn't as bad as you thought.

 

[catfish_mad]

I was saying that i've tested my tank water and it was high in nitrates then tested the rain water which was perfect in nitrates but of the scale in PH, then i Oxygenate it for 24 hours in a bucket and tested it again the following day. The readings were perfect for nitrates, nitrites and the PH level.

The air pumps in the tank will the do the same job as to what i was doin in the bucket but at a larger scale. This has been working for me ever since I started with my fish tanks, with no problems.

 

[andywg]

Off the scale in pH in which direction? One would normally expect rain water to be a lower pH than tap water and a lot softer. An air pump alone is not going to affect the pH level of water.

For a start, air pumps are very poor at aerating water as the bubbles have very little time to actually doissolve any gasses into the water column. On top of this when the bubbles "pop" at the surface there is no great amount of surface agitation (unless you are running a huge shop air pump rated in HP...).

I see very little benfit, and I have never heard of anyone ever having to "oxygenate" rain water prior to putting it in a tank.

 

[Loko17]

No, oxygen will not lower the nitrates. My question was to catfish_mad trying to figure out how (s)he thought the oxygen levels of the water were being affected.

It is in theory to have too much dissolved oxygen, but you cannot get it without really trying. Most tanks have absolutely nothing to fear from this.

Good news on the tap water. If the pH is similar to your tank, you could start off with larger changes (20-30%) until the nitrates are lower and then lower the percantage of each change.

Also, are you sure the nitrate test kit was working. Sometimes kits go our of whack or give strange readings and it may be that your tank isn't as bad as you thought.

No the test strips work because I made sure they worked because we have different test strips for our pond outside and i tested the water and came out with my test strips that are like exactly the same and it showed the same reading so i think I'm just going to start doing 20-30% water changes every other day to ensure that i wont shock the fish by doing it everyday.

 

[andywg]

The strips of paper style test kits are notorious for being massively inaccurate. Those where you are adding chemicals to a sample and the whole sample changes colour are far more accurate and a much better investment.

 

[catfish_mad]

This is turning into a slangging match, Sorry Loko17. andywg i'll do what works for me and my tank. The only reason i said what to do as my local fish expert (friend), has been doing this in all of his 65 tanks in his fish house for over 25 years so i think i can take his advice quite seriously.

 

[Themuleous]

65 tanks? Thats madness!

 

[andywg]

This is turning into a slangging match, Sorry Loko17. andywg i'll do what works for me and my tank. The only reason i said what to do as my local fish expert (friend), has been doing this in all of his 65 tanks in his fish house for over 25 years so i think i can take his advice quite seriously.

Some people have been saying that fish grow to the size of the tanks for 25 years, it doesn't mean that it is true. Plus I know of a few keepers who have loads of tanks and treat all the fish badly and still maintain that an Under Gravel Filter is the best filter you can buy as it has served them well for 25 years.

Years of experience is not the best substitute for knowledge and research - look how many lfs owners and employees get things massively wrong. By all means take his advice seriously, but do not blind yourself to the fact that other people may have better ways, or that your friend may not do the most economical things.

I was pointing out the scientific reasons why what you are saying is just not necessary in any way. Unless you have a large amount of life living in whatever collects the rainwater, it will already be at its natural level of dissolved oxygen that it will hold. Aerating it for hours will do only one thing, ensure it stays at that amount. The only reasons for dissolved oxygen to change will be temperature (colder=more oxygen), Salinitiy (More= less oxygen) or aerobic respiration (more respiration=less oxygen and more CO2).

You certainly cannot gas off nitrates like you seem to be implying, or else all my trickle tower filters would stop me ever needing a water change and the whole issue of water changes would be irrelevant as we would all just aerate the tanks a bit more.

 

[catfish_mad]

Yes in one respect your right but i was expressing my way of dealing with the problem, as this works for me and a few other people i know. I'm not saying your method is wrong or doesn't work, as it must do or else you wouldn't doin it. Its just the case of what other people say about your idea and how you do things gets you a bit . But i've taken your advice on board and would think about it if mine stopped working. Sorry again Loko17 for this little biccer.

 

[cableguy42]

I also use butt water and then oxyenate the water in a bucket over nite , never had any problems with nitrates or PH.IT DOES work as other people have said try it for your self and then let us know what the out come is................

 

[andywg]

My point isn't that aerating the water doesn't get rid of nitrates. My point is that there is no need. You can take the water straight from the butt and it still should not have any nitrates in unless there is a large porblem in the butt.

I was saying the nitrates are not there in the first place (unless you have problems with the storage/collection). I could take the water from a butt and wave a teddy bear at it and say I have thus never had a problem with the nitrates, doesn't meant the waving of the teddy bear is doing, anything does it?

Aerating water alone is not sufficient to get rid of nitrates in water. Simple as. Otherwise, don't you think we would all have large air pumps and air stones in the tank?