London Nitrates

[joloco]

hello

i live in london and my tap water nitrates are 50 mg/litre, what would you recomend to get them down in the tank?

thanks

 

[CFC]

Theres not much you can do apart from prefiltering with an R/O unit before adding it to the tank. To be honest 50ppm isnt much of a problem unless you are keeping super delicate species or trying to keep a planted tank, i keep my stingrays in london tapwater and have had no problems.

 

[joloco]

its planted with fish.

 

[falcodarkzz]

hello

i live in london and my tap water nitrates are 50 mg/litre, what would you recomend to get them down in the tank?

thanks

I have a similar problem, keeping enough plants counters this fine.

 

[joloco]

haha - more plants needed - excellent

 

[Bloo]

Same here. If your stocking isn't too heavy (i.e. make sure you keep it medium) and you have some plants, it generally drops down to around 30ppm or so if you ensure you don't overfeed and keep on top of your weekly water changes.

 

[Liam]

In my heavily planted tank a water change puts the nitrate level up not down, so yeah more plants. A bunch Egeria densa in a bucket outside in mid summer took the nitrate level down form London normal to 10 in two weeks. I have too much time on my hands methinks.

 

[joloco]

is that a fragile plant? my fish are into plant destruction

 

[Bloo]

What fish do you have ? How many and what size tank ?

 

[CFC]

The problem with recomending plants to clear up nitrates is that in order for them to be effective you need to have the right spectrum and levels of lighting in order for the plants to be able to use the nitrates up, the majority of commercially made tank set ups do not have this so unless some research into the world of planted aquaria is done all that the plants are doing is creating more places for algea to grow and making it more difficult to vacume the substrate.
Nitrates of 50-60ppm really are nothing to worry about for the average fish keeper, i would even go as far as to say unless you are keeping known nitrate intollerent species, breeding egg layers or need to moniter nitrates for a planted tank then testing for nitrates it completely unessesary provided regular water changes and tank husbandry is followed.

 

[joloco]

the reason i'm asking is that i was trying to diagnose what was wrong with my fish and wilder suggested that someone might have some suggestions about keeping the nitrates down as they are normally 50 - 60 but had risen to 75.

fish are:

2 x khuli loacg
3 x zebra danios
2 x apistogamma trif.
1 x gold ram
1 x dwarf gourami

2 cherry shrimps
pond snails

its a 100 litre tank with two flourescence tubes but not sure what wattage / voltage

 

[CFC]

With the apisto's and rams i would be more concerned with keeping them in the liquid rock we Londoners call water, these are soft water species which really wont appreciate the high pH and GH of our water and should ideally be kept in water with a pH below 7 and a GH below 10
(ours is closer to pH 8 and dGH 20, though it fluctuates with seasons and rainfall/water usage). I'd recomend diluting the water with some R/O water (which can be purchased at most good fish shops) to bring the hardness and pH down a little before worring about the nitrates.

 

[Bloo]

Yep absolutely agree with CFC. I've never had success with Rams (neons etc.) in this hard water / high pH. They just "fade" - start looking unwell and die after a few months. London water is not for them - unless you start mixing with RO (Reverse Osmosis). Which you can buy premixed (expensive!!) or make your own (also expensive!).
Or just stick to fish that are suited or can adapt well to high pH, extremely hard water and high nitrates.

 

[sevenleaf]

I'm just starting my 1st tank (I'm in SE London).

I'm after a community tank, what fish are good for a starter given London's water?

 

[CFC]

Mollies, platties, sword tails and guppies all thrive in london tapwater, as do most commercially bred community fish such as tiger barbs, 3 spot gouramies, the commonly seen sharks (redtail, rainbow, bala etc), angel fish, bronze and peppered Corydoras, bristlenose plecs; I could go on but the list would get really long and boring