What Good Are Water Changes If My Nitrates Are 20-30 Ppm From The Tap?

[Tyson]

My tap water is just horrible. My nitrates are at 20-30 ppm.

What good are WC's if I add more than I remove. I have a 20 gallon tank. I do a 25% water change every week. The nitrates in the tank are around 40 ppm. I think the only thing keeping it down are Purigen and Prime.

 

[Bugdozer]

If your base nitrates are 20-30ppm, then they will still increase from that level by the biological activity in the tank. You can't add more than you remove, unless you have a seriously huge quantity of plants taking it out of the tank water. There's more to water changes than simply removing nitrates, it replenishes other minerals that may have been used from the water.

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

Also Prime and Purigen don't remove nitrate. Don't overly fret about your nitrates. Just try to keep them within about 20ppm of what is in your tapwater

Yes doing water changes are about more than nitrate. Your fish and plants will use up minerals that are found in your water and the changes replenish them

 

[Crossfire]

live plants absorb nitrates as natural fertilizer. You could just stop adding fertilzer and let the plants soak up the excess nitrates. And adding more plants would help too.