Still Fighting Nitrate - Help

[Akasha72]

you've got a fight on your hands then if the tap water is 30. No wonder it's so high in the tank. This is similar to my fight with phosphate, high to begin with in my tap water and so I've no chance of controlling it in the tank. Only way is to run a phosphate remover all the time. This looks like a similar thing only with nitrates ;/

 

[clivealive]

yes its a nightmare tbo,    might try the john inns no 3 in a bag job (as its cheap)   dont mind paying out a bit if things worked.
everyone raves about purigen but did nothing , maybe i need a whole filter full of it lol

 

[Akasha72]

I read rave reviews for some of the po4 removers but in the end it came down to trial and error. I think some of them work better dependent on your water type. With the po4 removers they come as either iron based or aluminium based. All the iron based one's that I tried did nothing. Then I tried a aluminium based one and it worked a treat. The only answer I could come up with was my really soft water. There's no other explaination. I'm wondering now if it's the same for Nitrate removers too.
If you find something that works Clive stick with it. I use the NTLabs po4 remover and I refuse to try anything else now. I works and that's what I need

 

[clivealive]

its disgraceful that water company are happy to let us drink 27 plus nitrate , shame on them

 

[Akasha72]

it is disgraceful. I actually sent a strongly worded email about the po4 but it got me nowhere. All the rubbish in our water can't be healthy. 

 

[clivealive]

it is disgraceful. I actually sent a strongly worded email about the po4 but it got me nowhere. All the rubbish in our water can't be healthy. 

no i got full report it isnt ideal, even worse for fish

 

[Akasha72]

have you thought of going RO?

 

[Sophie]

The legal limit in the UK is 50ppm...
The legal limit in the US is 10ppm...

How does that work?

 

[Akasha72]

The legal limit in the UK is 50ppm...
The legal limit in the US is 10ppm...

How does that work?

 
it's called the EU .... refer to Shinysideup's post about that for our thoughts on them!!

 

[Byron]

Quickly on this legal limit, the units of measurement may be different.  The US limit of 10 ppm is measuring NO3-N, while our aquarium test kits use NO3.  There is a difference of 4.4, so 10 ppm of NO3-N equates to approximately 44 ppm of NO3.  I don't know what unit the UK uses for public water, but I would hope it is NO3.
 
Back to the problem...I have not had to deal with nitrate in my source water, so I will not guess at options but leave this for those who have the experience.  There are ways to lower/eliminate these, and well worth considering.  You did ask about Prime...this is (I think) the only conditioner that detoxifies nitrate, and Seachem have admitted they are not certain how this occurs, but it seems that the nitrate is somehow bound to become non-toxic.  This is fine at water changes, as it immediately detoxifies the nitrate entering via the source water.  However, Prime loses its effectiveness in about 24-36 hours, at which pint the bound nitrate will, if still present, revert back to the toxic form.
 
If the overall nitrate is 80 ppm, and 30 ppm is in the source tap water, that means an additional 50 ppm is occurring within the aquarium, and this you can deal with.  Not overstocking, not overfeeding, regular water changes (these will still dilute the nitrate occurring within the tank), cleaning of the substrate and filters, and live plants.  With respect to plants, the faster growing species are more useful as they take up more nutrients, and even floating plants which are fast growing and easier to manage would help.
 
Byron.

 

[clivealive]

have you thought of going RO?

na dont wanna end up paying for ro or a machine to produce it , not got a really local fish shop sadly

 

[Akasha72]

okay, just a thought. I would go down that route if I didn't live in a 1st floor flat!!

 

[brandoncw]

 

Do you have nitrates in the source (presumably tap) water, and if yes, what level?  Or is this 80 ppm occurring solely within the aquarium?

tap water is 30
also checked with water company a while ago and they confirmed its an average of 27  (human legal limit is 40 i think)

some chap was  organic soil in a sock can lower nitrate is this correct

 
found this
http/www.theaquariumwiki.com/Walstad_method
 

WOW! 30 out of the tap?? my water reports say 0.016 ppm... thats insane, is that even safe for human consumption being that nitrates come from things like fertilizer run off and sewage leaching into water sources??
0.016 ppm was the high end of the report too...

 

[Far_King]

Floating plants like Byron says would be best.  If you don't want to actually plant anything you can keep some in pots or use mossballs.
 
Live plants will definitely help in nitrate reduction as will a shorter period between water changes, perhaps weekly rather than ten days.  The would mean an extra water change in the same period so three where you'd normally only have done two.

 

[snowflake311]

Live pants will fix it. Some fast growing steam pants or duck weed. Live pants would be the cheap healthy way to fix the problem. Look into planted tanks.