What Are Your Nitrates?

[three-fingers]

Just wondering what everyone's nitrates are at, since I'm pretty chuffed with mine.
In my heavily stocked tank they are in between 5-10ppm and I've not done a water change in over 2 weeks! I'll be doing one on Wednesday though.
I think my tanks nitrates are so low because of all the plants in my tank, even though I have a very low light tank with no co2 (i do fertilise the plants though).
So I was just wondering what everyone else's nitrates are like, since I've always thought anything over 30ppm was really bad, but have seen healthy fish in tanks with much higher.
Thanks .

 

[Annastasia]

Mine are 20ppm from the tap. However, they stay at that level in the tank.

In the old house, they stayed around 5-10ppm.

 

[Gatorbait]

I have no idea what my water parameters are.

 

[Liam]

In London the tap water varies but its usually about 50, it goes down in my heavily planted tanks, it goes up when I do a water change. I don’t even bother testing for it anymore. Don’t think that nitrates at that level do any harm at all, at least nothing that I have ever noticed. I do use RO water on a couple of tanks but that is for soft water fish and shrimp not because of the nitrates.

 

[atmmachine816]

10 in one tank and 0-5 in another.

 

[t1tanrush]

"No Idea I don't have a test kit" Or filters for that matter. Test kits = wast of money IMO.

 

[highfire]

My tap water nitrates used to be around 30-40, but they seem to have dropped. I have just finished cycling my new 260 litre Fluval Vicenza, and at the moment the nitrates are only 5-10.

 

[Bloo]

In London the tap water varies but its usually about 50,

Exactly. And RO isn't an option for me sadly.

 

[MHunt]

I have 40-50 ish usually. Never noticed any ill effects with my fish either.

 

[cane76]

40/50 out of the tap

 

[Killi]

Mine are about 10 in the tank
I have none in my tap water though. Is this weird???

 

[Miss Wiggle]

0 out of the tap

>5 in my little tank

15-25 in the marine tank

fluctuates in the big tank due to the heavy bioload but always under about 30

 

[three-fingers]

"No Idea I don't have a test kit" Or filters for that matter. Test kits = wast of money IMO.

Why do you think that? And why no filters?!

You know I have no idea what my nitrates are like out of the tap, looks like I'm going to be testing tonight.
I'm pretty shocked that people have to put up with nitrates of 50 out of the tap! One guy at the lfs told me that my nitrates where too high and 10ppm, and that I should either buy a nitrate removing resin-thing or start buying the shops RO water! He said that I should have at least 4 inches deep sand substrate to allow for aerobic bacteria to get rid of the nitrates.
However he doesn't work there anymore, and I do. I think he just needed to brush up on the FW side of the hobby...

 

[brittlestar]

My nitrates are always 5-10 which is great as I have a heavily planted tank and the plants are happily munching away at it for food

 

[MHunt]

"No Idea I don't have a test kit" Or filters for that matter. Test kits = wast of money IMO.

Why do you think that? And why no filters?!

You know I have no idea what my nitrates are like out of the tap, looks like I'm going to be testing tonight.
I'm pretty shocked that people have to put up with nitrates of 50 out of the tap! One guy at the lfs told me that my nitrates where too high and 10ppm, and that I should either buy a nitrate removing resin-thing or start buying the shops RO water! He said that I should have at least 4 inches deep sand substrate to allow for aerobic bacteria to get rid of the nitrates.
However he doesn't work there anymore, and I do. I think he just needed to brush up on the FW side of the hobby...

Surely he means anerobic bacteria which is what you get in a deep sand substrate. I have heard of this, but the flip side is it produces a black smelly gunk which can poison your tank!