When Will My Nitrate Be 0

[Jeff Lange]

Well, My 65 gallon has been up and running for 3 months or so. 1 1/2 months with the fish stocked after the fishless cycle.
Will my Nitrate ever be 0 ?
It has been roughly 10 ppm for a long time and never goes any lower.

My setup is as follows.

65 gal . I am running 2 Rena XP3's in the system so I think my filtration is great. I also do 20% water changes each week. Ammonia and Nitrite have been 0 since I added fish after the fishless cycle approx 1 1/2 to 2 months ago and my PH has been 7.4.

My fish load is as follows:

2 Angelfish Med/Lg They have laid eggs 3 times but they always eat the eggs after a couple of days.
2 Clown Loaches
6 Coreydora's
2 Albino Rainbow Sharks.

Thanks for the help everyone.

 

[ox5477]

Well if you did enough water changes in a short amount of time, then you could prob get close... but really 10ppm of nitrate is nothing to worry about. far below the danger zone for nitrate so need to really worry too much about it

Ox

 

[SJ2K]

Nope likely never 0, most people have a trace nitrate reading straight from the tap not to worry, its not untill it gets well over 100ppm that it starts getting risky.

 

[kj23502]

Your nitrAte will never be 0, unless your doing a saltwater tank with a bunch of live rock, in which case your not. You should strive to keep it below 40ppm unless your tap water is higher.

Ammonia and nitrite should always be 0

 

[waterdrop]

As the others have said, getting nitrate (NO3) down to zero is not expected.

The current overall system most aquarists use is a biofilter population of A-Bacs that quickly remove any ammonia, a population of N-Bacs that quickly remove any nitrite (NO2) and then the nitrate (NO3) that is the product of this chain is expected to gradually rise in level throughout the week and be typically be diluted back down by a weekend water change (or whenever you regularly do them.) Its the filters important business to keep the two poisons, ammonia and nitrite, down at zero as constantly as possible, whereas nitrate is not nearly as bad.

In TFF it has been discussed that not even levels of nitrate of 400ppm or even 1000ppm have been found to kill fish. But nitrate is still not good and since it is the end product of the biofilter system and can be reasonably measured, it serves as a flag test for good aquarium maintenance. As SJ2K says, getting up over 100ppm is still not something to stress over, but the guideline goal often cited is what kj says, 40ppm. That 40ppm number is often used as a sort of hinge point - if it seems to be the max your tank drifts up to before your water change then your water change schedule is pretty good. If it keeps wanting to drift higher than that then perhaps you should consider increasing your percentage or your frequency of change. Make sense?

Its also important to always remember that the water changes are not all about the nitrate, its just the "flag" substance. The water changes are actually removing all sorts of things we don't want but that would be too expensive and troublesome to test for. Lack of a good water change habit has been implicated in "old tank syndrome", where a seemingly healthy tank goes along for years with no filter problems and stable healthy fish but then abruptly experiences a loss of fish without disease symptoms. It is thought that a buildup of substances that would normally only be found in trace amounts has happened due to lack of water changes (assuming typical aquaria, not planted tanks or specialized designs.)

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Jeff Lange]

Thanks guys.

Just after all my reading on the cycling and stuff led me to believe that my nitrate was to be at 0.
Is always at 10 ppm for over the past month even after water change it is the same. Thanks again for the knowledge and help

 

[smudger72]

What I would give for a nitrate reading of 10ppm
Good on ya for keeping it that low.

 

[Gatorbait]

Thanks guys.

Just after all my reading on the cycling and stuff led me to believe that my nitrate was to be at 0.
Is always at 10 ppm for over the past month even after water change it is the same. Thanks again for the knowledge and help

Many aquarists would kill to have a steady reading of 10 ppm nitrates.

I know of a lot of people that have 40-60 ppm right out of their tapwater.

Feel lucky and laugh at the rest of us.

 

[backtotropical]

Hi Jeff,

Long time no read.

Everything seems to be going ok with your fishless cycled tank, so well done you!

As the others have said, 10ppm of nitrate is absolutely nothing to worry about. However, i'm going to disagree that 40ppm is the generally accepted target level. It is too much of a generalisation.

Basically, although nitrate has been been shown to not cause any negative effects in fish at concentrations of up to 400ppm and sometimes 1000ppm, it is generally accepted that the lower the nitrate reading the better. Nitrate won't do any damage in small concentrations, but it doesn't bring any benefit either, and any chemical you don't need in your tank is better off not being there.

As each person has different tap water and tank set up, the target level of nitrate is different for everyone. The best way to find your target level is to test your tap water for nitrate. If your tap water is 40ppm of nitrate, then take that as your target level. Anything above that would indicate a water change is required in your tank. If the tap water reading is 10ppm, then the same applies etc etc.

Striving to keep your nitrate level in the tank as close to the level from the tap is really the best most of us can do, and so long as your tap reading is below 400ppm, it shouldn't pose a threat to the fish. Monitoring the tank level against the tap level is also a good indicator of whether your water change routine is sufficient. For example, if the tap reading is 40ppm and the tank 80ppm, this would indicate that you should increase the volume or frequency of your water changes. Bear in mind that this is an indicator only and not a laid down law, because as Waterdrop said, water changes remove many more things than just nitrate, and they also replenish essential minerals in the tank water.

I'm going to make another point which i don't think anyone else has covered yet. Do you have live plants? Many planted tanks attain a nitrate reading of 0ppm because the plants use the nitrate as food, even when nitrate from the tap has a detectable reading. 0ppm is not unusual if the tank is heavily planted.

Hope this helps you.

BTT

 

[Jeff Lange]

No, no live plants yet just plastic. Maybe someday. I get a 0 reading on my nitrate from Tap water and my tank has been continuous at 10 ppm. I have been using the API liquid test kit for all my tests.

 

[SJ2K]

No worries then, your very very lucky Nitrate is no real issues, im sure ive read somwhere that its been known for nitrate to creep into the several 100's without negativly effecting even Discus so its clearly no huge threat.

 

[backtotropical]

That's certainly nothing to worry about, Jeff.

If the level starts to creep up, that would indicate that you should do more water changes, but if it stays constant at 10ppm, thats absolutely fine.

 

[waterdrop]

<...>
As the others have said, 10ppm of nitrate is absolutely nothing to worry about. However, i'm going to disagree that 40ppm is the generally accepted target level. It is too much of a generalisation.

Basically, although nitrate has been been shown to not cause any negative effects in fish at concentrations of up to 400ppm and sometimes 1000ppm, it is generally accepted that the lower the nitrate reading the better. Nitrate won't do any damage in small concentrations, but it doesn't bring any benefit either, and any chemical you don't need in your tank is better off not being there.

As each person has different tap water and tank set up, the target level of nitrate is different for everyone. The best way to find your target level is to test your tap water for nitrate. If your tap water is 40ppm of nitrate, then take that as your target level. Anything above that would indicate a water change is required in your tank. If the tap water reading is 10ppm, then the same applies etc etc.

<...>
BTT

LOL, yes, I was expecting to get a rise out of someone for my paragraph. Thanks BTT. Jeff, I think BTT and I are in agreement here and his was a perfect followon to mine. I was trying to "keep it simple" and generalizing to the situation where the tap water is zero nitrate to begin with. I was also trying to call 40ppm just a "hinge point" for decision, not the target to reach - the target in that situation would be 0-10 realistically. The 40 would be the high level reached prior to the weekly water change for a tap=0 person. For a tap=30 nitrates person, the high might reach up to 70-80 and the water change might bring it down to 35-40 realistically.

Good discussion and I agree with BTT, great to hear that your fishlessly cycled tank is still doing well!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[rabbut]

Nitrate can hit zero in a cycled freshwater tank without plants, its just not common. You can get denitrifying filters, that use a slow flow rate through their media to do the opposit of our conventional filters. They are designed to have low oxygen content, creating an ideal setting for another type of bacteria to colonise. After not cleaning an exturnal for a few months, its flow dropsed on me without my noticing, and it went "anairobic" (the tearm for the filter's conditions when it removes nitrate) and after a few months of the tank having 20-50ppm of nitrate, they suddenly dropped to zero. It realy threw me for a good few weeks untill I realised the filter flow rates had dropped I was running the exturnal along side an inernal, so the internal must have been processing ammonia to nitrate and then the extrunal removing the nitrate...

Still with me?

All the best
Rabbut

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, I think the term is "anaerobic" - lack of oxygen.

rabbut, do you remember the extended discussion a while back about "Nitrate Filters?" Can't remember if it was in Hardware or where. Interesting for you to get a similar effect from an uncleaned regular type filter!

~~waterdrop~~