# High nitrate?



## robert2191 (21 Feb 2016)

Hi , does my nitrate look to high




Thanks 


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## darren636 (21 Feb 2016)

It looks over 40 ppm
But that could be due to macro ferts?


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## robert2191 (21 Feb 2016)

darren636 said:


> It looks over 40 ppm
> But that could be due to macro ferts?


Thanks would my fish be ok


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## GHNelson (21 Feb 2016)

Hi Robert
My Nitrate from the tap is approximately 50ppm!
Test your tap - water!
These test kits are not that accurate....they a frowned on by a lot of aquarists on here!
Your fish will be okay....do a large water change to remove some nitrate!
hoggie


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## robert2191 (21 Feb 2016)

hogan53 said:


> Hi Robert
> My Nitrate from the tap is approximately 50ppm!
> Test your tap - water!
> These test kits are not that accurate....they a frowned on by a lot of aquarists on here!
> ...


Thank you i did a water change yesterday , i will test my tap water as soon as i can
Thank again 


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## Miss Pennyapple (21 Feb 2016)

Hi, I switched from using the API nitrate test to the Nutrafin Nitrate test. I was finding the API test was impossible to distinguish between 40 and 80 - the Nutrafin test is much easier to read colour-wise. Also, it's worth remembering that nitrate tests generally are not very reliable anyway! If the fish are happy, I rarely test my water these days.


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## robert2191 (21 Feb 2016)

Miss Pennyapple said:


> Hi, I switched from using the API nitrate test to the Nutrafin Nitrate test. I was finding the API test was impossible to distinguish between 40 and 80 - the Nutrafin test is much easier to read colour-wise. Also, it's worth remembering that nitrate tests generally are not very reliable anyway! If the fish are happy, I rarely test my water these days.


Thanks 
I don't test my water often but i have lost a few fish in the past couple of weeks so I decided to test it. 


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## Swordplay (22 Feb 2016)

Fish will generally cope with high nitrates for fairly long periods of time. A good indication that it is high if you are worried about test kits is that they can start to appear sluggish and lethargic,as has been suggested a large water change is probably the best solution.


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## NathanG (22 Mar 2016)

I see no way to distinguish between 40-80 ppm on that card. 

Not sure what test kits are actually recommended tbh. The mainstream nutrafin or tetra kits are bashed to high heaven and api seems to be accepted somewhat. I must admit i've only tested my water once in 5 months via a LFS, i just don't know what to buy.


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## ian_m (23 Mar 2016)

NathanG said:


> Not sure what test kits are actually recommended tbh


Any of these will give a far more reliable reading than anything you get in your fish shop.

Nitrate test
http://www.lamotte.com/en/aquarium-fish-farming/individual-test-kits/3354-01.html
Nitrite
http://www.lamotte.com/en/aquarium-fish-farming/individual-test-kits/3352-01.html
Ammonia
http://www.lamotte.com/en/aquarium-fish-farming/individual-test-kits/3304-02.html
pH
http://www.lamotte.com/en/aquarium-fish-farming/individual-test-kits/3353-01.html
KH
http://www.lamotte.com/en/aquarium-fish-farming/individual-test-kits/4491-dr-01.html
Phosphate
http://www.lamotte.com/en/aquarium-fish-farming/individual-test-kits/3121-02.html

I think they are about £70 a kit. Job done...


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## zozo (23 Mar 2016)

@ian_m do you realy have 400 pound + of testing kits in your cabinet?  
I kinda wonder, if the cheaper ones are that inaccurate what would de percentage discrepancy be? How far are they if or can they be off.. Is it, or could it be, they are completely useless? I guess you have even bigger problems if a bit color blind without knowing it...


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## ian_m (23 Mar 2016)

zozo said:


> @ian_m do you realy have 400 pound + of testing kits in your cabinet


I don't test the water as there is no reason to. Just watch drop checker and plants to see water quality.



zozo said:


> they are completely useless?


Correct.

The issue is the test results are affected by other things in the water other then the salt you are trying to test for. Nitrate tests are influenced by presence of chloride & chlorine, ammonia tests influenced by chloride and dechlorinator. So much so unless you know what else is in the water the test results are meaningless. In some of the above LaMotte tests, you neutralise the chloride (and other ions) first then use the result to choose the colour chart &/or reagent for the colour test.


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## zozo (23 Mar 2016)

Ok thanks, me neither i'm not a drop tester, at least not for plant growth other than kH and gH.. But bought the basic sets for fish health like ammonia and nitrite.. And lately installed a moving bed filter of which is said they can up the nitrate levels significantly, so i bought a set of that out of curiousity.. I thought i can live with a safe range of discepancy and these products are kinda based on that.. But if they are that useless i can even save the €10 i spend on it and buy fish food or something..

I know for a fact our water company uses zerro chlorine nor dechlorinators.. But could be mistaken or informed falsly, always thought chlorine only excists in gass form and eventualy will degass from the water especialy rather faster if it's moving water.

Is there a internet reference around with a list of elements which can corrupt a test other than chlorine? Actualy i would say, test for chlorine first before you test for ammonia. But ok then i wonder why the test description leaves this out.? Hmm already always kinda thought LFS stands for Local Fooling Shop, now i'm realy convinced..


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## ian_m (23 Mar 2016)

zozo said:


> always thought chlorine only excists in gas form


Not necessarily. Chlorine gas will generally dissipate from the water, if left for 24hours. But chloramine is also used, around the world, as its doesn't dissipate so easily. Chloramine must be removed chemically either suitable well maintained carbon filter or dechlorinator. Some countries, notable Netherlands use hydrogen peroxide to sterilise their water supply.


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## zozo (23 Mar 2016)

Intresting, never looked it up before, since we don't have it in our water i had no need to..



> Chloramines are a group of chemical compounds that contain chlorine and ammonia


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## ian_m (23 Mar 2016)

zozo said:


> Intresting, never looked it up before, since we don't have it in our water i had no need to..


Some areas of Netherlands do use chlorine/chloramine, you need to check with your water company.


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## zozo (23 Mar 2016)

I did  thank you, i live rather close to the German/Belgium border, (that's why the rest of our country calls us Half Germans and Reserve Belgiums) we get our water from the German Eifel area.. Sweet, soft and clean, brewed after "Dem Deutsche Reinheidsgebot". The Germans are very Grundig when it comes to commandments. 

my fish and I feel very lucky with that..  I know up north they have some issues with their water supply..


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## ian_m (23 Mar 2016)

My water comes from Twyford,  through chalk and is very pure but rock hard....

The draw point is a tiny concrete bunker next door to the old Victorian water softening works.
http://www.twyfordwaterworks.co.uk/


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## dw1305 (23 Mar 2016)

Hi all,





zozo said:


> But could be mistaken or informed falsly, always thought chlorine only excists in gass form and eventualy will degass from the water especialy rather faster if it's moving water.


 It is the difference between chlorine gas (Cl2) (and the <"hypochlorite ion"> (ClO−)) and the chloride ion (Cl-).

Dissolved chlorine gas (Cl2) will equilibrate with the level of atmospheric chlorine, and because the level of chlorine in the atmosphere is really low (it is measured in parts per trillion) all the chlorine gas will disappear from the water.

However the chloride ion (Cl-) will just remain in solution, you know it doesn't go anywhere because the sea is salt with NaCl (as Na+ Cl-) that has accumulated over millennia.

It is the chloride ion (Cl-) that interferes with the testing of other monovalent anions (like NO3-). In sea water we have a known amount of chloride ions (19.5 part per thousand) and we can factor that in to our equation, in fresh water we don't the level of Cl- ions. Most chloride compounds are soluble, but silver chloride (AgCl) is insoluble, meaning that you can precipitate out any chlorides from your tank water sample before testing by adding an excess of a soluble silver compound, usually silver sulphate ((Ag2)SO4).

Nearly all nitrate compounds are soluble as well, so to use a colorimetric method (like in the API test kit) you need to reduce the NO3- to nitrite (NO2-). 





> Nitrate is reduced almost quantitatively to nitrite in the presence of Cd. The nitrite thus produced is determined by diazotizing with sulfanilamide and coupling with N-(1-napthyl)-ethylenediamine dihydrochloride to form a highly colored azo dye that is measured colorimetrically.


 You can get accurate NO3- levels for water, but none of the methods are very straight forward. In the lab we use <"ion selective electrodes">, but you still needs to make up standards etc. If you want accurate results (like a water company would want) you need to use high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC).

There is a much easier way of estimating the nitrate content of your tank water, that is to observe the growth rate and colour of a non-CO2 limited plant in your aquarium.

If your plant grows quickly, and is dark green, you have lots of nitrate.They use this approach for <"crop plants"> 

 

Plants with access to the atmosphere (400ppm CO2) are non-CO2 limited so a floating plant is perfect, and this was how the* <"Duckweed Index">* was born.

cheers Darrel


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## dw1305 (23 Mar 2016)

Hi all,





zozo said:


> And lately installed a moving bed filter of which is said they can up the nitrate levels significantly, so i bought a set of that out of curiousity..


 This is right, the more effective a filter is at aerobic biological filtration the more NO3 is produced (final levels will be dependent upon the ammonia bioload).  

Moving bed, and wet and dry trickle, filters keep all the filter media oxygenated which means that they can oxidise large amounts of ammonia. If you have a filter that doesn't produce much NO3 it is because it is oxygen limited and either:

levels of NH3/NH4+ and NO2- are rising, 

or NO3 is being anaerobically out-gassed as N2 gas.
The second option is the present favoured one for marine aquarists with live rock and/or deep sand beds. If you try it in a canister filter you have every chance that option 2.  will become option 1. and kill all your fish.

Marine aquarists went away from moving bed/trickle filters because they were "nitrate factories" and algae (like _Chaetomorpha_) aren't fast growing enough to fully deplete the NO3 from the tank water, *
but* 
things are different for fresh-water aquarists, where macrophytes (and particularly floaters like _Pistia_), have the ability to convert a huge amount of NO3 into plant tissue, and we can use low nitrate water (RO, rain or tap dependent upon circumstances) for water changes. 

cheers Darrel


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## zozo (23 Mar 2016)

Thanks i million Darrel for the explaination, i totaly get the picture.. I was already wondering what that duckweed index was all about and how to properly use it and was planning to read the whole article.. But this alrady says enough.. Duckweed is just a name giver of this rather simple and very handy concept.. I understand logicaly any emersed growing indicator plant does the same job as long it's a nitrate lurker it does shows rather more obvious. I just bought the nitrate tester when building the moving bed filter and see if the levels would drasticaly change, but actualy according the test it din't, it stayed between 10 - 20 mg/l.

My emersed growth kinda tels me it's enough, it swings out of the tank at all sides.  I even add some nitrate once in a while with Tropica..

@ian_m  It wasn't always like that, our region is mainly Loess soil and beneat it is Coal, Marl and Sand.. It is the Marl deposits spoiling our local water supply we still had in the 80's. I remember doing GH test back then and stopped at 38 drops, because i didn't want to waste the whole bottle on one test. It was so crazy hard the goverment got involved because the boiler-scale was so severe it affected public institutions like hospitals etc excessing the maintenance costs. They made an embargo with the germans, able to use a subterranean water vein comming from them. The embargo is they will never dig or build near this water supply, so it not rerouted and keeps comming our way. If they ever would block it, a few 100.000 families would be without water. Now we have GH/KH 4. That water vein runs practicaly a few 100 yards from my doorstep and the local water lab testing it constantly is a mile away. So i can stop by and ask a copy of the todays analysis report personaly on the fly while taking a walk. I'm realy happy with that.


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## zozo (23 Mar 2016)

dw1305 said:


> Marine aquarists went away from moving bed/trickle filters because they were "nitrate factories" and algae (like _Chaetomorpha_) aren't fast growing enough to fully deplete the NO3 from the tank water,
> *but*
> things are different for fresh-water aquarists, where macrophytes (and particularly floaters like _Pistia_), have the ability to convert a huge amount of NO3 into plant tissue, and we can use low nitrate water (RO, rain or tap dependent upon circumstances) for water changes.



So it's a matter of time before a marinetank keeper commens up with hanging baskets and little mangrove trees in it....  That would be a nice sight i guess.. Seen them offered for sale now and then..


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## BigTom (23 Mar 2016)

zozo said:


> So it's a matter of time before a marinetank keeper commens up with hanging baskets and little mangrove trees in it....  That would be a nice sight i guess.. Seen them offered for sale now and then..





 

(not my photo)

Macro algae like _Caulerpa spp_. can make a difference, I filled by sump with a few different types and dropped my nitrates from 10ppm to 1ppm.


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## zozo (23 Mar 2016)

BigTom said:


> View attachment 84411
> 
> (not my photo)
> 
> Macro algae like _Caulerpa spp_. can make a difference, I filled by sump with a few different types and dropped my nitrates from 10ppm to 1ppm.



Lol!!  Wonderfull.. Kinda knew it must be around somewhere.. I'm using a sump now as well and actualy  thought to late of making all compartiments a bit smaller to leave more room for plants.. So only have very little in there. But definitely something i recon with the next sump i'll build.. Or rebuild the one i use now if i feel like it, i just might, not yet desided..


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## dw1305 (23 Mar 2016)

Hi all,





BigTom said:


> Macro algae like _Caulerpa spp_. can make a difference, I filled by sump with a few different types and dropped my nitrates from 10ppm to 1ppm.


I've never had a marine tank, but I was to try one I would definitely have an algae (and probably just a refugium, rather than a scrubber) and, if I could, Mangroves. 

Using macro-algae for nitrogen reduction is always going to be a better approach than not using any plants, partially because you will get negative feedback where higher nitrogen levels cause faster growth, which reduces nitrates.

The other advantage of a refugium is that it directly provides food for herbivorous fish and is a reservoir of Amphipods and Copepods etc.

I'd like to think that more enlightened reef keepers are now looking at ways of incorporating suitable Red and Green Algae into their tanks, and that these tanks, which have algae, will be more stable and resilient in the long term. 

cheers Darrel


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## parotet (23 Mar 2016)

I guess riff tanks are like a drug. Once you put your first coral in it, you begin to think on the next one. No room for "ugly" green stuff, just for expensive and colorful little animals.
Not a marine tank fan (for the moment) but the marine tanks are basically riff tanks for most people. In most cases a huge collection of corals lacking for my taste of the aquascaping touch so well developed in freshwater planted tanks

Jordi


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## zozo (23 Mar 2016)

Same here the only marine tank i ever have is a pot fried hering.. I keep it like that..  To much hassle for to little diversity versus cost and difficulty.. Maybe i'm just to stuppid.. 

But seeing that setup in big toms reply.. That could be an awsome scape if it was one tank with a clif rock scape going into a beach area.. There are definitely some artistic possibilities with mangrove..


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