I Apologize

[Colin_T]

For Miss Wiggle re high nitrates in London.
If the fish are bred in London water with its high nitrates maybe they adapt to it and their offspring are more able to tolerate it. It happened in the Northern Territory (Australia). A mining company closed down and left the local waterways really toxic with seriously high copper levels. All the scientists said nothing would survive in it. A few years later somebody found a school of rainbowfish living happily in the river in water with copper levels that would kill a horse. It turns out these particular fish have developed bigger kidneys and liver to deal with the poisons. A genetic mutation for the better. Maybe the same thing has happened with locally bred fish in the UK.

For backtotropical
I heard when nitrates got above 200ppm the bacteria in the filters started to pull it apart and turn it back into ammonia.
As for high nitrates being ok for fresh but not salt water setups. Unless the above has happened (what I wrote for Miss Wiggle) one would think high nitrates are bad for fresh & salt water setups.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yes, i accept that if the fish have been bred in these water parameters they will be more used to them and more adaptable. however if we're talking about average community trops (which i think we have to as this discussion gets a bit convuluted if you get into specific species requirements!) then most of them aren't bred locally anyway, they're bred in great big fish farms then shipped across the world. not many lfs's actually take fry and juvi's from small local breeders unless they are more unusual species.

anyway i wasn't trying to pick a fight, as i said, i do agree that if you can keep the nitrates low you should (although partly because the low nitrates can only be achieved by regular maintenance which has numerous other benefits).

 

[tetraqueen]

It is good to debate and get all sides , this is really an interesing post. Thanks.

 

[Colin_T]

For Miss Wiggle

I wasn't trying to pick a fight with you either. I just wanted to add the point about genetic mutations adapting to their local water source. You are right in saying most fish come from ponds in Asia and do best in low nitrate water.

They're not aquatic plants tho so don't expect them to live under water

It's meant to be a smiley face with flowers. Need a microscope to understand what I said. It looks like it is smoking a pipe.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

For Miss Wiggle

I wasn't trying to pick a fight with you either. I just wanted to add the point about genetic mutations adapting to their local water source. You are right in saying most fish come from ponds in Asia and do best in low nitrate water.

didn't think you were

just wanted to make it clear my tone is that of amicable debate not argument! easy to mis interpret these things on a forum.

 

[Colin_T]

it certainly is. You miss out on the smiley face and pow, your in a real life virtual online punch up

 

[waterdrop]

I agree, good debate and discussion,

The copper rainbow story is a good reminder that all creatures with genetic material can evolve. I think its important to distinguish between evolutionary adaptation and acclimatizing. An individual animal might be able to acclimate to a fairly wide range of some condition but to adapt evolutionarily requires many generations. And I think its been shown that the adaptations are not linear, they happen in jumps, but still I'll bet it took quite a number of generations for that new rainbow population to happen.

So nobody followed up on my comment about nitrate levels as they pertain to a beginner tank where one desires a compromise between healthy fish and healthy plants. Are plants just as happy in 0ppm nitrate as in 10ppm nitrate?

Thanks

 

[Miss Wiggle]

So nobody followed up on my comment about nitrate levels as they pertain to a beginner tank where one desires a compromise between healthy fish and healthy plants. Are plants just as happy in 0ppm nitrate as in 10ppm nitrate?

no, plants prefer higher nitrate (planted tank enthusiasts often aim for 30ppm nitrate)

realistically for average easy to grow plants and average easy to keep trops if you aim for 20ppm you'll not be far off for either of them and they can both tolerate some variance both ways.

 

[rdd1952]

So nobody followed up on my comment about nitrate levels as they pertain to a beginner tank where one desires a compromise between healthy fish and healthy plants. Are plants just as happy in 0ppm nitrate as in 10ppm nitrate?

10 ppm of nitrate is certainly fine for both plants and fish. I'm not necessarily sure if you would say they were healthy for fish but certainly not unhealthy. I guess it's about the same as if we drink tap water with 5 to 10 ppm of nitrate in it. It's probably not necessarily healthy for us but won't harm us. As far as plants needing nitrate, they can (probably prefer) actually use ammonia rather than nitrate. So in a fully stocked tank, the plants can get what they need from the ammonia rather than nitrate.

 

[Colin_T]

The copper rainbow story is a good reminder that all creatures with genetic material can evolve. I think its important to distinguish between evolutionary adaptation and acclimatizing. An individual animal might be able to acclimate to a fairly wide range of some condition but to adapt evolutionarily requires many generations. And I think its been shown that the adaptations are not linear, they happen in jumps, but still I'll bet it took quite a number of generations for that new rainbow population to happen.

I think they were found about 5 or 6 years after the mine closed. They have one breeding season per year but the season lasts for several months. The fish are capable of breeding within 6 months but conditions don't normally allow for that. So I guess maybe 5 or 6 generations after the mine was closed. However, they may have been evolving while the mine was still running.

Rainbowfish are quite quick to evolve. We had some Goyder River Trifasciatas that could live in cold or warm water. It took less than 10 years to get them that way. They lived outdoors all year (in Perth Western Australia) and survived water temperature fluctuations between 2degrees C and 38C. They were really well coloured and used to start breeding as soon as the temp got above 20C. In contrast their wild counterparts would breed at 22C but the eggs wouldn't hatch unless the water was above 24C.

I was also working on Melanotaenia praecox attempting to do the same thing. Within 3 generations I managed to get them to live in 6 degree C water over winter and 35C over summer. Unfortunately I lost them to TB and that put an end to my experimentation. But it was interesting and they would have made a lovely pond fish.

 

[backtotropical]

For backtotropical
I heard when nitrates got above 200ppm the bacteria in the filters started to pull it apart and turn it back into ammonia.

I've never heard of that, Colin. Where did you source that info?

As for high nitrates being ok for fresh but not salt water setups. Unless the above has happened (what I wrote for Miss Wiggle) one would think high nitrates are bad for fresh & salt water setups.

I was really referring to it's application to inverts, which are much more sensitive. I believe the research which found that levels of up to 400ppm would have no short or long-term effect was relating to fish rather than inverts. This is my reasoning for suggesting that it may not apply to saltwater set ups.

I am aware that things like freshwater shrimp are available, but again i'm not sure if the research applies here. It'd be interesting to find out..............

Andywg

 

[Mikaila31]

I have never really felt that nitrates where that important, unless you are dealing with really sensitive fish. I test my tap and tank only like once a year for nitrate. Tap has always stayed at about 20ppm, which is kinda annoying. I have some big waste producers, so I just do 50% water changes every week. That way I know they should be <50ppm. And either way I find it almost impossible to read the nitrate test colors once it gets above 30ppm. I keep a bunch of rummy-nosed tetras in that tank and they are all doing great. For planted tanks on the other hand, nitrate levels can go down. I tested mine, 20ppm at the beginning of the week and 10ppm at the end of the week. There are tons of plants in there that are growing like weeds. I doubt theres even any good bacteria in that tank.

On the other hand I have seen fish live in really high nitrates for years. The tanks at my school are never taken care of, I tried one year but gave up when I came back the next year and found no one touched it for 3 months . Any way I have seen fish live for years in there with mabey one water change a year. I never tested it, but it has to be really high.

 

[andywg]

Andywg

Patience my dear. Patience.

The papers are mentioned in this post by Tom Barr. This is a great post where Mr Barr is refuting previous comments that his dosing of nitrates is too high and dangerous to life in the tank.

For those too lazy to look at a link, I shall quote the relevant part of the aforementioned post:

What has been published that are good studies that test the items we are interested in:

Pierce et al 1993 suggested for marine fish:
"Previous studies have indicated that long term exposure to nitrate-N levels above 100 mg/L may be detrimental to fish(440ppm). This study was undertaken to assess the acute toxicity of nitrate to five species of marine fish, while efforts were taken to reduce the nitrate concentration in the recirculating systems."

Marco 1999, suggests that warm water species have a suggested range of "recommended levels of nitrate for warm-water fishes (90 mg N-NO3-/L)"

That's N as NO3, so 4.4X 90 = ~400ppm NO3.

Quite high.

here's a link to the common fathead minnow:

SETAC Journals Online - ACUTE AND CHRONIC TOXICITY OF NITRATE TO FATHEAD MINNOWS (PIMEPHALES PROMELAS), CERIODAPHNIA DUBIA, AND DAPHNIA MAGNA

edited url to give correct link

Do the math for the conversion of N-NO3 to NO3 for ppms.
Quite high huh? Note the sensitivity differences for inverts, they are much better test subjects than fish.

Still not convinced?

Well take a long look at the Fish and NO3 toxicity section in this good review paper at table 3:

http/www.s2.chalmers.se/~tw/DOWNLO...ate_limits.pdf

It's fully accessible.

Remember to multipy by 4.4 to get NO3ppms rather than N-NO3!

As you can see from Table 3, the ranges are extremely high and that warmer water fish tend to have a greater ability to withstand NO3 levels as well. When fish breed, this representst the behavior(positive good) and the most sensntive life stanges(eggs and fry). I routinely have breeding occur in such higher NO3 tanks(30-40ppm etc).

Now some have made claims that my advice concerning NO3 dosing is bad for fish and they have not supported with test, with primary research, nor applied plant tank experience neither over short term nor over long term test.
I've done test with Ghost and amano shrimp and gone to over 160ppm with ghost shrimp and Amano's before death occured. No fish where adversely affected. The ranges I tested are further supported via the research presented here.

Sadly, the second link seems to be down. But you get the idea from the above

 

[Colin_T]

For backtotropical
I heard when nitrates got above 200ppm the bacteria in the filters started to pull it apart and turn it back into ammonia.

I've never heard of that, Colin. Where did you source that info?

I heard it years ago but never had a chance to test it so not sure how accurate it is.

 

[backtotropical]

The papers are mentioned in this post by Tom Barr. This is a great post where Mr Barr is refuting previous comments that his dosing of nitrates is too high and dangerous to life in the tank.

Cheers Andy!