really… how bad is our water…

[Magnum Man]

so, I really struggled, with my aquariums when I started back again 4 years ago… at the time, it seemed like just the soft water fish, so I bought an RO unit, and that seemed to make a huge difference, but it wasn’t big enough to keep up with water changes, on all the tanks the same day… so a while later I bought a big commercial RO unit, and a 100 gallon holding tank… finally enough RO water to do 1/3 weekly water changes…

then I got into hard water live bearers, using straight well water, and the troubles started again… well it turns out not only is my well water rock hard, and highly alkaline, it’s also at or above the safe legal limit for nitrates… we have another RO unit in the kitchen for drinking water…

I have a buddy, that lives a few miles away, just across the Iowa border, that is a bit of conspiracy theorist , and has had his water tested, several times, and thinks since it is right at the legal limit. the testing lab is rounding his results down, so the state doesn’t have to do anything about it… with Mayo clinic being in Rochester Minnesota, 40 miles down the road to the east, it seems a big coincidence that the state of Minnesota is buying water treatment systems for the surrounding counties ( that stops at my county line )…

so I have a lot of terrestrial plants ( most of which really like nitrates ) growing out of most of my tanks… I’m currently trying to get them going in my hard water tanks… and it seems to be having a positive effect, on fish lives…

so really, it seems at some point, if your water change water is worse than the water in your tanks, reducing your water change schedule could be advantageous…

 

[Magnum Man]

years ago, I started with pothos vines growing out of my tanks, and with many tanks, I have a real jungle in need of taming… they have even transitioned to other floors, than the tanks are on… I’m in the process of converting over to hoya vines, slowly, as I realize how bennificial the pothos are to my tanks… I believe the hoya are nearly as good at removing nitrates, but probably just a little less aggressive growing, so probably remove slightly less…

this some www. info, I copied…

 

[Magnum Man]

so, just to be clear, I’m not advocating for not changing your water.. just to be aware, that your water change water could actually be worse than the water currently in your tanks…

 

[GaryE]

I honestly don't know if I would keep aquariums if I had water like yours. I'm always amazed at how polluted drinking water can be in agricultural/cattle zones. There's a broad area of central North America where this seems a really serious problem, as the people with that problem well know. From reading here, I think there's another similarly polluted area in England.

All of us have to take the time to know what our water from the tap is like, and think about that as we give advice. We really should say what we have, rather than assuming anything, as those reading us may have an entirely different thing happening.

My latest nitrate readings from the city are <0.2 ppm, as listed under our Clean Water Act for Dec 2025, and tested at a place I can see out my back windows. That's a wee bit different...

 

[Back in the fold]

I read an article in NANFA’s journal about collecting Fundulus notatus and it noted how polluted the water was at the collection site . I also see my local ponds and irrigation ditches in agricultural areas that look a little iffy and I see fish in them . The wild fish have probably acclimated themselves to less than ideal conditions over time and our captive aquarium fish would probably keel over dead if put into that water or maybe not . Mayhaps we are too focused on perfectly pristine water and our water test kits have made us goofy .

 

[gwand]

I read an article in NANFA’s journal about collecting Fundulus notatus and it noted how polluted the water was at the collection site . I also see my local ponds and irrigation ditches in agricultural areas that look a little iffy and I see fish in them . The wild fish have probably acclimated themselves to less than ideal conditions over time and our captive aquarium fish would probably keel over dead if put into that water or maybe not . Mayhaps we are too focused on perfectly pristine water and our water test kits have made us goofy .

I hope you’re right. My well water, like Magnum’s, also is contaminated with nitrate. I use a nitrate binding resin filter plumbed into my sink where I attach my python for water changes. But I can only run the water at a gallon every four minutes in order for the resin to bind nitrate effectively. So a 20 gallon water change takes me 80 minutes. I would love to use my well water without the resin filter. I could complete the water change in minutes. Should I risk exposing my fish in my 60 gallon Lake Tanganyikan tank to my unfiltered well water? What do you think?

 

[Magnum Man]

do you have a lot of plants in your African tank… if they are actively removing the nitrates, you may be fine.. the other thing, seems some fish are more tolerant… often times cichlids are

 

[gwand]

do you have a lot of plants in your African tank… if they are actively removing the nitrates, you may be fine.. the other thing, seems some fish are more tolerant… often times cichlids are

Yes. Plenty of plants. Four fish species and all Lake Tanganyika cichlids. No dithers.

 

[Back in the fold]

I hope you’re right. My well water, like Magnum’s, also is contaminated with nitrate. I use a nitrate binding resin filter plumbed into my sink where I attach my python for water changes. But I can only run the water at a gallon every four minutes in order for the resin to bind nitrate effectively. So a 20 gallon water change takes me 80 minutes. I would love to use my well water without the resin filter. I could complete the water change in minutes. Should I risk exposing my fish in my 60 gallon Lake Tanganyikan tank to my unfiltered well water? What do you think?

That’s an entirely different situation there . I don’t think I’d risk it if it were me but something you could do is set up ANOTHER aquarium and use it as an experiment with your well water . Fill it with water straight from the well and stock it with identical fish and then watch . Might be enlightening or it might be disastrous .

 

[GaryE]

Tanganyikan Cichlids are not pollution tolerant. The lake is an old environment, and the general goal with them is stability. Plants won't cut it. They're useful, but not miraculous.

I used to buy the idea fish had adapted to bad conditions locally. Then I realized how many once common species were locally extinct in our main rivers, and only survived in cut off environments away from the pollutants. We have a local population of Fundulus heteroclitus, a killie, that thrives in a highly toxic stream that runs through an oil refinery. Biologists are studying them because this should not be, but they have found adaptations to rapid changes in salt/fresh water for these coastal fish seem to have a usefulness in what can only be 60 years of exposure. No other fish survives in their creek.

Some fish are very tough, though their lives are shorter. But you can't apply that to all the fish we like. If you have bad water, you have to make it good, as much of a pain as that is. I wish that weren't true.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I have no preoblem with nitrates in my tanks for a number of reasons. The first is we have our own well with very good water. So this is never an issue. We have neither farming nor industry nearby so the ground water is good.

Next, I have two types of tanks, One are my heavilty planted community and they burn through any nitrate pretty fast. I fertilized all my planted tanks weekly and also add Excel as well. But for the past 19 year I rant more than half my tanks for breeding and growing out plecos. For a number of years I relied on weekly water changes to control any nitrate. And then I discovered Swiss Tropicals, Poret foam and Hamburg Mattenfilters.
I had MAtten filters in a several tanks and in others U used multiple Poret cubefilters. What I discoverd was with the right amount of media of the proper dimentsions that I was getting denitrifying bacteria in the tanks. If you are unfamiliar with Facultative bacteri, this is what was dealing with the nitrate in my well stocked but not planted tanks.

Facultative bacteria are capable of switching between aerobic respiration and anaerobic processes like denitrification, where they use nitrate as a terminal electron acceptor in the absence of oxygen. This ability allows them to thrive in various environments and play a crucial role in the nitrogen cycle by converting nitrate into nitrogen gas.

Basically, these bacteria help to comple the nitrogen cycle because they turn the nitrate into NO2 (nitrogen gas). So, I am getting both nitrification and denitrification from the same filter media. Yje way this works is that there are a tone of routes that wanter can follow as it goes throught the foam. As the itrifying bacter and other bacteria, including the faxultative ones that use oxygen colonize the foam, there will be passageways where the oxyhent in the water gets used up. Nitrate is then in the water. When this happens the facultative bacteria colonize after the ones using up the oxygen in a particular flow route, that water contains the nitrate from the nitrifiers.

And when this happens the facultative bacteria switch to using the nitrate. This can also happen in the Poret foam cubefilters which have way more surface area and passageways than they normal foam media used in filters or various kinds. Over time I have swithced all of my ATI air powered foam filters to Poret cubefilters. I also have replaced much ot the AquaClear foam to Poret in my Aquaclear hang-on filters.

I also have one of my canisters filled with only Poret foam. I only need to clean this filter ever few years.

 

[Naughts]

What I discoverd was with the right amount of media of the proper dimentsions that I was getting denitrifying bacteria in the tanks.

What do we need to replicate this?

 

[gimme30]

I like the pothos idea, but I don't think they'd do well in my dimly lit room. Besides I kill terrestrial plants just as well as I do the aquatic variety.

Your friend may be on to something though. My city's water report claims all is within limits but the samples I've sent for testing proved otherwise.