Losing my nitrate battle

[Characf]

So my tap water contains 30PPM nitrates, which isn't ideal when doing water changes. I have used Abbeysdad 'nitrazorb filtering process' and although pain stakingly slow i was getting tap water at 0ppm nitrates but after 900 gallons it's spent.. so I recharged with salt water for a week (as instructed) and this week's test on the filter was showing 30ppm nitrates again? With £30 worth of nitra zorb useless after 5/6 50% water changes. Also it was taking 12 hours to get 100 gallons of filtered water

Does anyone have any quicker and cheaper alternatives? Does anyone else struggle with nitrates? Or should I just give up because it's a drag

 

[Aqua67]

Could you add a lot of fast growing floating plants to your aquarium and then perhaps combine your tap water with some RO or distilled water?

 

[Characf]

Could you add a lot of fast growing floating plants to your aquarium and then perhaps combine your tap water with some RO or distilled water?

I've got quite a lot of floating plants, and yeah I could but that's still expensive

 

[Byron]

Plants that are aquatic will not help here because they do not use nitrate but ammonia/ammonium as their source of nitrogen. Having said that, they will turn to nitrate if the ammonia/ammonium becomes insufficient in balance with all other nutrients and light, and this means in a high-tech method planted tank. It takes an incredible amount of energy from the plant to use nitrate because the plant must turn it back into ammonium in order to use it. In tanks where the nitrate is occurring solely from the biological system within the tank, and not in the source water, plants help because they take up ammonia/ammonium faster than the nitrifying bacteria so there is no nitrite and thus no nitrate resulting. By "no" I mean it will be so minimal that it is usually not even detectable with our basic tests.

Terrestrial plants do use nitrate as their nitrogen, so some have success placing the roots of terrestrial house plants in the tank water, sometimes in the tank itself and sometimes in an external filter. Provided the plants are not toxic to fish--and some are very much so--this may help.

Aside from this, nitrates in the source water have to be removed, and @AbbeysDad method is so far as I know it. The third option is "pure" water, such as RO or distilled. Depending upon the fish, this might require adding minerals back. It can be expensive though.

 

[Wills]

Its been a bane of my fishkeeping for many years - I have 20-25ppm of nitrate in my tapwater, but at my old house I had 40ppm. I have to admit for many years I didnt do anything out of ignorance more than anything but as the evidence and information grows the responsible thing is to do your best with it.

There are a few routes we can use to help but I'm not convinced there is a free or easy way... the process you mentioned and the one abbeysdad does is good but like you say hard to get the recharge right or expensive. RO is expensive and a little more complex than sometimes presented - very easy to get the remineralisation wrong which can do more/faster harm to the fish than nitrates.

The other option is to use a mix of aquatic and terrestrial plants in the tank but with this process each time you do a water change you will end up with increased nitrates that will take a period of time for the plants to deal with. I've been told this process can also cause nitrate shock to the fish so its not as easy as perhaps expected.

@Byron I've been meaning to ask you this for a while actually - do you think if you got a tank set up with enough terrestrial planting and aquatic planting you could maintain low nitrates 0-5ppm you could perform lower percentage water changes to remove hormones and other waste elements without increasing the nitrate from the tap? Eg (theoretically and roughly) if a 50% water change would set you at a total of 15ppm a 25% change would give you 7.5ppm reading.

Wills

 

[Byron]

@Byron I've been meaning to ask you this for a while actually - do you think if you got a tank set up with enough terrestrial planting and aquatic planting you could maintain low nitrates 0-5ppm you could perform lower percentage water changes to remove hormones and other waste elements without increasing the nitrate from the tap? Eg (theoretically and roughly) if a 50% water change would set you at a total of 15ppm a 25% change would give you 7.5ppm reading.

I don't know for certain. But the one problem with using terrestrial plants is certainly the time it might take. This depends upon the plants, and I have no idea about terrestrial plants' rate of nitrate absorption. With aquatic plants, we know from scientific studies that faster growing plants like floating species can take up ammonia/ammonium as fast as it can be produced, and within reason it is impossible to add so many fish in the tank that this fails. "Ammonia sink" is indeed a good term for substantial floating plants. I would assume that faster growing terrestrial plants also have more rapid uptake of nitrate, but I have no direct knowledge on this.

As for nitrate "shock," I'm not sure that is correct. I went into this topic in detail with Neale Monks and the late Bob Fenner, and they unequivocally agreed with me when I said that moving fish from water with nitrate into water with no nitrates was a benefit the faster it was done. But in reverse, with water changes introducing high nitrate, I don't know, we weren't concerned with that. Someone on TFF insisted that the nitrates should be slowly lowered over weeks to avoid shocking the fish, and Neale said that was definitely wrong, the faster the better. You want to get fish out of water containing any poisonous substance as fast as possible, not dawdle over it. Given that nitrates slowly weaken fish, which then causes other problems because the fish is unable to adequately deal with them, I do not know what might be the effect of weekly "up and down" with nitrate. I certainly think the better and safer method is to do the removal of nitrate from the source water before it goes into the aquarium, such as how @AbbeysDad does it.

 

[AbbeysDad]

I certainly think the better and safer method is to do the removal of nitrate from the source water before it goes into the aquarium, such as how @AbbeysDad does it.

First, although I was perhaps once a pioneer in source water nitrate removal with a repurposed API Tap water filter filled with API NitraZorb, I'm happy to report that my well water nitrates are low enough now so as not to require filtration. The 95 acre farm land across the road changed hands and the new caretakers use manure instead of chemical fertilizer. So although the air here isn't so good when they spray the $hit outta tanker trucks, the water is better!!!
As to high nitrates and the bad company they keep I have a theory that tank generated nitrates may be somewhat worse than source water nitrates. Still, at higher levels, nitrates are a low level poison so getting fish to fresh water is always better. I understand the thinking behind not shocking fish, however this would be like saying giving someone oxygen after suffering smoke inhalation is bad - not so.
If you have high nitrates in your source water I invite you to review the several articles I've published on my website.

 

[10 Tanks]

So my tap water contains 30PPM nitrates, which isn't ideal when doing water changes. I have used Abbeysdad 'nitrazorb filtering process' and although pain stakingly slow i was getting tap water at 0ppm nitrates but after 900 gallons it's spent.. so I recharged with salt water for a week (as instructed) and this week's test on the filter was showing 30ppm nitrates again? With £30 worth of nitra zorb useless after 5/6 50% water changes. Also it was taking 12 hours to get 100 gallons of filtered water

Does anyone have any quicker and cheaper alternatives? Does anyone else struggle with nitrates? Or should I just give up because it's a drag

Hello Characf. You can use Seachem's "Safe" to remove any chemical your public water people put into your tap water. It will remove those chemicals and detoxify all the forms of nitrogen. You'll need to add one-eighth teaspoon or five milliliters of the product to every five gallons of replacement water. If you add a little more, don't worry. You can't overdose the Safe product.

10 Tanks

 

[Essjay]

I am given to understand that Safe is the same as Prime, just than one is a powder, the other a liquid.
Prime detoxifies nitrate for only 48 hours maximum. If they do indeed have the same ingredients, after a couple of days the nitrate in Characf's tap water will "undetoxify" again, and he'll be back as if he never used it.

@10 Tanks Do you know if there is any difference between Prime and Safe other than their physical state?

 

[Essjay]

You can't overdose the Safe product.

Seachem's website says it can be used at 4 times the usual dose in an emergency. That is not the same as "can't overdose" it.

 

[seangee]

Well my own nitrate battle ultimately ended with the ro solution. However i can confirm that with enough aquatic plants in the tank you can prevent nitrate from increasing. Reducing it is almost impossible and the fact that it does not increase does not reduce the need for water changes. The idea is simply that the plants deal with all the ammonia so it never turns to nitrite or nitrate. Remember your bacteria will go dormant due to starvation, so make sure you keep your plants alive.

 

[10 Tanks]

Seachem's website says it can be used at 4 times the usual dose in an emergency. That is not the same as "can't overdose" it.

Hello Essjay. My use of the word overdose was used to let the poster know that if you added a bit more than the eighth of a teaspoon I recommended, you didn't need to be concerned. Of course you wouldn't want to add the entire container. I don't believe that could be done even accidentally.

10 Tanks

 

[Wills]

I don't know for certain. But the one problem with using terrestrial plants is certainly the time it might take. This depends upon the plants, and I have no idea about terrestrial plants' rate of nitrate absorption. With aquatic plants, we know from scientific studies that faster growing plants like floating species can take up ammonia/ammonium as fast as it can be produced, and within reason it is impossible to add so many fish in the tank that this fails. "Ammonia sink" is indeed a good term for substantial floating plants. I would assume that faster growing terrestrial plants also have more rapid uptake of nitrate, but I have no direct knowledge on this.

As for nitrate "shock," I'm not sure that is correct. I went into this topic in detail with Neale Monks and the late Bob Fenner, and they unequivocally agreed with me when I said that moving fish from water with nitrate into water with no nitrates was a benefit the faster it was done. But in reverse, with water changes introducing high nitrate, I don't know, we weren't concerned with that. Someone on TFF insisted that the nitrates should be slowly lowered over weeks to avoid shocking the fish, and Neale said that was definitely wrong, the faster the better. You want to get fish out of water containing any poisonous substance as fast as possible, not dawdle over it. Given that nitrates slowly weaken fish, which then causes other problems because the fish is unable to adequately deal with them, I do not know what might be the effect of weekly "up and down" with nitrate. I certainly think the better and safer method is to do the removal of nitrate from the source water before it goes into the aquarium, such as how @AbbeysDad does it.

Really great info but not quite answered what I meant to ask sorry.

If all the nitrate is dealt with in a tank and taken to 0-5ppm by terrestrial and aquatic plants - presuming they are taking care of phosphate and some other organics as well. Do you think a 50% water change is still necessary (assuming sensible stocking levels) or would something in the region of 25% be a good option? This way in my situation I would be raising the nitrate level to between 6 and 11ppm at a water change (from 0-5ppm). Or if I did 50% it would take it to 12.5-16.5ppm.

I think terrestrial plants are the only way to reduce nitrates in a tank like @seangee said growing aquatic plants means they take up the ammonia so nitrate isn't produced so the way the terrestrial plants use nitrate as a food source is the only way I think to actually reduce it. It takes about 10-12 weeks for them to do anything but once the aquatic root systems get going you really see the difference in levels I have some problems in my current tanks still but definitely improving.

Its interesting as most people that have problems with high nitrates are usually from the UK, and UK houses are so small compared to other countries we have a hard time storing water in ways that make life easy sometimes...

 

[Byron]

Really great info but not quite answered what I meant to ask sorry.

If all the nitrate is dealt with in a tank and taken to 0-5ppm by terrestrial and aquatic plants - presuming they are taking care of phosphate and some other organics as well. Do you think a 50% water change is still necessary (assuming sensible stocking levels) or would something in the region of 25% be a good option? This way in my situation I would be raising the nitrate level to between 6 and 11ppm at a water change (from 0-5ppm). Or if I did 50% it would take it to 12.5-16.5ppm.

I think terrestrial plants are the only way to reduce nitrates in a tank like @seangee said growing aquatic plants means they take up the ammonia so nitrate isn't produced so the way the terrestrial plants use nitrate as a food source is the only way I think to actually reduce it. It takes about 10-12 weeks for them to do anything but once the aquatic root systems get going you really see the difference in levels I have some problems in my current tanks still but definitely improving.

Its interesting as most people that have problems with high nitrates are usually from the UK, and UK houses are so small compared to other countries we have a hard time storing water in ways that make life easy sometimes...

Do I think a 50% W/C is necessary--preferably for many equally if not more important reasons than nitrates, but one must keep the problems in mind so maybe not. My previous post did point out the risks, I just didn't carry it through I guess. I would want to know exactly what rise in nitrates the W/C caused, and then decide whether that was safe or whether a smaller volume would be better if it resulted in a smaller rise each W/C. I also mentioned the yo-yo effect of nitrates up and down due to the W/C and I would assume that is not the best situation. The effects on the fish if there were any would not be noticeable to us, which is always such a danger in this hobby (Nathan Hill's comment in blue in my signature again), at least not until the fish succumbed to something because of having been weakened by the nitrate yo-yo.

I think I'll discuss this with Neale tomorrow (too late now) and report back.

 

[seangee]

Its interesting as most people that have problems with high nitrates are usually from the UK, and UK houses are so small compared to other countries we have a hard time storing water in ways that make life easy sometimes...

The UK, like the EU, has a legal limit of 50ppm. IMO that's too high for human or animal consumption. But we know that removing nitrate is costly so the water companies only do what they MUST. In my area we get ground water and it's heavily forested - so really not surprising it comes out of the tap at 50ppm