# RO vs Nitrate removal filter



## Notator (11 Nov 2012)

In my area the water is heavy in nitrates - around 40/50ppm consistently, and higher at the weekends...
So my question is can anyone advise me on whether to go for an RO unit or just a Nitrate filter. 
Any pro's and con's to either would be very much appreciated,
Jerry


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## ceg4048 (12 Nov 2012)

Hello,
         You're advised to ignore it and carry on. Why complicate your life? Plants need nitrate desperately, so why remove it?

Cheers,


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## Notator (12 Nov 2012)

CEG, are you stalking me? 

Thanks, again, I'm not trying to be arguementative - just trying to understand... I'm sure I've read in more than one place that high nitrate levels are bad for the fish and should be under 20ppm...


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## ceg4048 (12 Nov 2012)

Hi,
   There are a lot of places that tell you that NO3 is bad for fish and that you should eliminate it. The problem is that nobody actually researches the "why" and "how" and so they don't really understand the context. People also mix and confuse information from different sources without paying attention to the details. NO3 is the end product of a toxic chain of events and it is actually natures way of _detoxifying_ an aqueous environment. It is the chemical reactions that occur within that chain of events that actually does the damage, not the end product. When you understand this chain in greater detail, you will come to realize that feeding you fish is more dangerous to your tank inhabitants than the NO3 that is already in your tap. Read the following threads for some of the details:
viewtopic.php?f=21&t=12592
viewtopic.php?f=37&t=12656&start=30

Cheers,


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## AverageWhiteBloke (12 Nov 2012)

Another way of looking at it is your lucky to already have Nitrate coming out of your tap! If the values you see are correct that is. The second link CEG posted there was one that I found was the most convincing in the Nitrate long term health affect and changed my thinking totally on the subject. In the big scheme of things that could affect long term health of your fish NO3 values are right down there below tapping on the glass.

More evidence if you need it is the vast majority of people in here will dose at quite high levels of Nitrate, some even higher than what is seen as the highest levels needed or EI as it's known. Thus far no one has reported any fish deaths or strange activity from the fish at these higher levels.

I have dosed EI levels in my tank for years and I have fish in there that have made it through 3 different tank set ups and by all reading on fish life span should have been dead about a year ago. One cory I have and a Siamese catfish that I used to start a new set up about three year ago have even moved house with me and are currently doing well in my latest set up  

A lot of the scare mongering you here about regarding nitrate comes from fish only systems where the lack of plants sucking it out of the water can increase algae as algae will grow anywhere under any conditions. Even my rabbits (daughters) water bottle will grow algae and that gets washed out daily!In fish only systems it will accelerate algae growth so nitrate removers get used. Plus it gives the commercial fish suppliers something to sell   These rules don't apply in a planted tank and in fact the exact opposite is true that making sure there's enough nitrate in there is the problem. In your case you have a small buffer in your tap water.

Embrace your nitrates


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## BigTom (12 Nov 2012)

Clive, I was just idly browsing at work and followed that first link of yours to the thread from 2010 - your dinosaur/plant analogy is definitely one of the best posts I've ever read on here. Rarely are hilarity and usefulness combined so effectively


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## roadmaster (12 Nov 2012)

In fish only tank's ,sans plant's, Nitrates are hard to accumulate to level's that may affect the fishes with weekly water changes.Cichlid's I have kept in particular,,do better at lower level's <40ppm.
With lot's of plant's,I have recorded nitrates as high as 80 ppm with popular hobbyist's test kit, which may or may not be accurate,but these level's are a result of inorganic mineral salt KNO3 that I add each week, as opposed to accumulation of fish waste,fish food,poor maint.My fishes, plant's, remain healthy.  
 With level's from the tap as recorded,, I too would choose more plant's over R/O or de-nitrate devices.


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## mafoo (16 Nov 2012)

Unless you are keeping Crystal Shimp, levels arround 40ppm are probably fine. Carbon and plants will reduce it slightly.

The otto's might be a bit stressed with nitrates that high - they're pretty sensitive little things.

If you want to lower the nitrates, I recommend the Fluval lab series Nitrate exchange resin, it brought the nitrates of my tank water down from over 40ppm (tap water around here) to about 5ppm in a day or so in a 50L tank. You stick it in the last chamber in your filter canister. The best thing about it is that you can recharge it using aquarium/sea salt and its nitrate-nitrite selective.

Another thing to remember is that a lot of water conditioning products, like the tetra aquasafe, are designed to bind to the nitrates and render them harmless to the fish - but they will still show on the test.


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## plantbrain (16 Nov 2012)

Just dose everything but KNO3, and switch it with K2SO4. Do your water changes once a week, you should be fine.


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## Notator (17 Nov 2012)

Thanks to everyone - very helpful and very reassuring!
Wow there is a wealth of knowledge on this forum! 

IT was the Otto's I was concerned for - although I hasten to point out they don't seem distressed at all - and also I had been considering investing in some crystal shrimp (Maybe I'll back burner that idea for the time being). 

Thanks for all the great input and info folks,
Jerry


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## ceg4048 (17 Nov 2012)

Neither Ottos nor shrimp care about nitrate. What they care about is clean water, and the same people who are paranoid about nitrate also refuse to regularly and frequently change their polluted water never realizing that fish are living in their own toilet. So the creatures contract diseases or are made more susceptible to stress by accumulation of toxins in the water that we ourselves add by dumping food in the water. Either the food goes uneaten and rots or if it is eaten it returns to the water as feces and urine. Ottos come from water systems which have millions of times more water so their toxic biological wastes have very low concentrations and they are not subject to ammonia and nitrite poisoning, or to the debilitating effects of hypoxia.

So this is what happens to so many tanks and why people have such difficulties. They poison their own water, refuse to replace that poison with clean water, claiming some gibberish about how parameters must be kept the same, and at the end of the day they blame nitrates for all their troubles. Get whatever fish or shrimp you want but CLEAN YOUR TANK frequently and in good measure.

Cheers,


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## Notator (17 Nov 2012)

I do frequent changes alright - but the level of nitrates never seems to drop much - UNLESS I fill my tank with really fast growing plants. The problem with that is that I then need to tend the tank every day pruning or it gets really unruly. I've swapped slowly but surely over to slower growing plants to reduce the daily maintenance but then of course I am no longer removing material from the tank at such a rate. Last couple of weeks the Nitrate in the tap water has been even higher than usual, God knows what they are playing at.

I've tried:
Changing food - using Hikari Micro Pellets to feed my 6 neons (twice a day...TINY amounts, almost all eaten immediately, doesn't even get to drop to the bottom)
Reducing Shrimp feeding to almost zero - quarter of a Hikari Algae Wafer every other day
Cleaning filter weekly - although I only flush the sponge/biostrate with the tank water coming out for changing...

Only thing I can think of is more thorough cleaning of the filter, but I'm afraid to do that in case I kill all the bacteria colonies....


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## mafoo (18 Nov 2012)

If your really set on lowering your nitrates, use this stuff:

http://www.surreypetsupplies.co.uk/fluv ... -150g.html

Plants and the anaerobic bacteria in the filter probably wont remove it much faster than its being produced, and when you change your water its going to go back up anyway. So you could fill it up with RO water and then dose it with some trace minerals for healthy plant growth.

If you want to get really obsessive about your water quality, get  a TDS tester (about £10 on ebay)


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## dw1305 (18 Nov 2012)

Hi all,


> I do frequent changes alright - but the level of nitrates never seems to drop much - UNLESS I fill my tank with really fast growing plants.


Try some floaters, they have access to atmospheric CO2, so can utilise any available nutrients in the water fairly efficiently. The advantage is that you can hook them out really easily. Have a look a the "Duckweed Index" posts.
<http://www.ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=21003> & <http://www.ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=14400>.



> Plants and the anaerobic bacteria in the filter probably wont remove it much faster than its being produced,


 This honestly isn't true, plants are about an order of magnitude more efficient as water filters than bacterial only systems (even plant only systems will support a large amount of bacteria). If you have a system where oxygen isn't limited (like a planted wet and dry trickle filter) it can deal with huge bio-loads. 

cheers Darrel


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## Notator (18 Nov 2012)

Do any particular plants use a lot of nitrate in their growth cycle compared to others or is it simply a matter of more growth = more nutrient requirement?

(I can't beleive I just said "simply"... I KNOW that's asking for trouble!)


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## mafoo (19 Nov 2012)

Notator said:
			
		

> Do any particular plants use a lot of nitrate in their growth cycle compared to others or is it simply a matter of more growth = more nutrient requirement?
> 
> (I can't beleive I just said "simply"... I KNOW that's asking for trouble!)



Reeds, but thats probably not practical


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## ceg4048 (19 Nov 2012)

Notator said:
			
		

> Do any particular plants use a lot of nitrate in their growth cycle compared to others...


Yes, of course. Plants that grow more quickly than others use more of everything than those plants that grow slowly. Fast growth equals more rapid nutrient and CO2 uptake. This is fairly simple and straight forward. Also, the more massive a plant is, the more nutrient and CO2 uptake is required to maintain that mass. So you can "get around" the trimming requirement by eliminating the fast growing plants and by having a very high density of slower growing plants.

What is less simple is the two way interaction between Nitrogen usage and Carbon usage. In order to construct enzymes and proteins, which are all built using Nitrogen/Carbon subunits called Amino acids, the plant requires high levels of carbohydrate. Therefore, adding more CO2 will increase the NO3 and NH4/NH3 uptake rates.

Cheers,


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## dw1305 (19 Nov 2012)

Hi all,


> Fast growth equals more rapid nutrient and CO2 uptake. This is fairly simple and straight forward. Also, the more massive a plant is, the more nutrient and CO2 uptake is required to maintain that mass. So you can "get around" the trimming requirement by eliminating the fast growing plants and by having a very high density of slower growing plants. What is less simple is the two way interaction between Nitrogen usage and Carbon usage. In order to construct enzymes and proteins, which are all built using Nitrogen/Carbon subunits called Amino acids, the plant requires high levels of carbohydrate. Therefore, adding more CO2 will increase the NO3 and NH4/NH3 uptake rates.


 It is just like Clive (and Mafoo with "Reeds") imply. If you have elevated CO2 levels in the water, or even better in the air (The 30ppm of dissolved CO2 aimed for with a drop checker is still only 1/10 of the 350 ppm CO2 in the atmosphere), carbon isn't a limiting resource and plants can utilise the available nutrients. I don't add CO2, so I use plants that have access to aerial CO2. 

I've high-lighted _Pistia_, because although its growth rate and nitrogen removal potential is smaller than Water Hyacinth _Eichornia crassipes_ it is a lot easier to grow in the tank. _Pistia_ also also shows luxury phosphorus uptake. 

I think every-one should have access to these papers: 
Sharendu, S. _et al _(2012) "Luxury Uptake and Removal of Phosphorus from Water Column by Representative Aquatic Plants and Its Implication for Wetland Management". _Soil Science_ 2012 <http://www.isrn.com/journals/ss/2012/516947/>.


> The maximum capacity of luxury uptake of P under greenhouse conditions as exhibited by _Pistia_ was further tested. _Pistia_ individuals tolerated up to 50?mg/L phosphate medium and accumulated 6.12±0.95?mg/g?dw P after 35 days under greenhouse conditions. Up to 91% phosphate was removed from the surrounding medium within 60 days at 50?mg/L supply.


I think every-one should have access to this paper: Lu, Q. _et al_ (2010) "Phytoremediation to remove nutrients and improve eutrophic stormwaters using water lettuce, _Pistia stratiotes_" _Environ. Sci. Pollut. Res._ *17* pp. 84–96 <http://irrec.ifas.ufl.edu/irsws/pdf/2/ESPR-QLu-Phytoremediation (2010).pdf>
*Abs.*


> Water quality impairment by nutrient enrichment from agricultural activities has been a concern worldwide. Phytoremediation technology using aquatic plants in constructed wetlands and stormwater detention ponds is increasingly applied to remediate eutrophic waters. The objectives of this study were to evaluate the effectiveness and potential of water lettuce (_Pistia stratiotes_ L.) in removing nutrients including nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) from stormwater in the constructed water detention systems before it is discharged into the St. Lucie Estuary, an important surface water system in Florida, using phytoremediation technologies......Water lettuce has a great potential for removing N and P, reducing water suspended solids and turbidity from stormwaters, and improving water quality.


cheers Darrel


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## Notator (19 Nov 2012)

See... I KNEW I shouldn't have used the word "simply". Knew it. 

Now I know I'm going to regret this too...but...if:-



> _(The 30ppm of dissolved CO2 aimed for with a drop checker is still only 1/10 of the 350 ppm CO2 in the atmosphere)_



Would I not be better pumping air into my reactor and not worrying about my fire extinguisher collection?

Also, could anyone give me some names of small, dense plants... Keyword there being small... ?


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## ceg4048 (19 Nov 2012)

Notator said:
			
		

> Now I know I'm going to regret this too...but...if:-
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Err.. I think you might be missing the point. Darrel is alluding to the fact that when CO2 is dissolved in water it is much less available to plants than it is when it is dissolved in air. Air pumped through a reactor has a CO2 concentration of 350 ppm, but FE CO2 pumped into your reactor has a concentration of approximately 1,000,000 (1 million) ppm. Please review the mathematics and rethink this strategy.

Cheers,


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## AverageWhiteBloke (19 Nov 2012)

> Also, could anyone give me some names of small, dense plants... Keyword there being small... ?


Generally fast growing stems or floaters are the best at sucking nitrate out of the water, hygrophilia springs to mind. They can be as small as you can be bothered trimming them.


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## ceg4048 (19 Nov 2012)

Well the point that I'm trying to make is that it is a waste of time to be concerned about nitrate levels in the tank water. Worrying about getting the right plants just so that they can "suck up the nitrate" is a fruitless and irrelevant objective. It has been already explained that high inorganic nitrate levels are not a health concern in a tank. Of course eutrophication is a very different story in the natural bodies of water because it affects the balance of species in that system and changes the dynamics. Again, this is irrelevant in a tank because tanks have nothing to do with nature. So if nitrate is not a toxic agent and if it is good for a planted tank, why worry about the levels? You're not doing yourself any favors by looking for a solution to this problem. You should embrace it and simply carry on. The people who worry about nitrate are the ones who continually have the most problems.

Just have a look at these George Farmer threads. George lives in an area with high nitrate and phosphate levels in the municipal water supply and has no trouble keeping an amazing variety of fish. No health concerns and he doesn't have to buy much fertilizer, so this is saving you money.
viewtopic.php?f=35&t=5761
viewtopic.php?f=49&t=15933&p=164884
viewtopic.php?f=35&t=10501

Cheers,


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## Notator (20 Nov 2012)

*sticks head nervously above the parapet* 

I live just round the corner from Mr Farmer I beleive!

Thanks for the tip on Hygrophila - sounds like the latin name for "Fear of Fast Growing Plants"


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## foxfish (20 Nov 2012)

It is a shame this forum does not have a like button .... Hygrophila -"Fear of Fast Growing Plants"


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## AverageWhiteBloke (20 Nov 2012)

Its no bad thing that you would want to reduce the nitrate levels in your tank. Who knows there may be enough in your tap water to keep your plants healthy. Its just to point out that it shouldn't affect anything else you do as it is no harm to your fish and beneficial to your plants. No real point in looking for plants that use up most nitrate just get the ones you like mate. The tap water should come second to what a you're trying to achieve its so insignificant. If you want and it makes you feel more comfortable and saves some money what you could do is like I did with phosphate which is a similar situation as yours.I find the easiest way is to mix the fert with cooled boiled water and Dose the nitrate Ei values for a month or so. Then the next bottle you make dose same amount but less a gram of nitrate until at some point you see a negative effect on the plants. Problem here is you might get an algae issue before the plants show deficiency and as the plants grow and spread the nitrate levels may need to be upped. That is probably the reason most would say don't worry about it as you can get on with your tank without worrying if you have enough nitrate or not.


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## AverageWhiteBloke (20 Nov 2012)

Should that not be phobia? Philia   is a like of I think. I like a joke as much as the next man as long as its grammaticaly  correct. !) only joking. Nice one


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## Notator (21 Nov 2012)

Thanks AWB - you've really helped my atychiphobia...
(Google it u b*****r!)


Just out of curiousity...there is a Glossophobia!
In fact, You've inspired me - I'm going to start a new thread for planted tank phobias...real and real sounding!

http://www.ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=24361


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## AverageWhiteBloke (22 Nov 2012)

Glad you managed to sort out your phobias   I'll send you my bill!

Really though, a couple of scenarios that may make you feel at ease. I went through a similar situation as your self. Test kits shown that my tap water had no nitrates but extremely high levels of po4, well over 3mgl the highest reading on the test kit. Due to me using the manufacturers data sheet my tank held 165ltrs of water so off I went dosing kno3 at E.I and no po4. I also didn't do 50% weekly water changes partly to laziness and partly to my work schedule. Recently I set the same tank up again and had the opportunity to see exactly how much water it took to fill it with give or take the same amount of hardscape and plants in. Turns out that my tank holds roughly 130ltrs so I have over dosed kno3 for about 2 year, not changed enough water and suffered no problems with my fish. I would imagine a fair bit would have accumulated in the tank over that period.

My po4 situation on the other hand. Since setting up my new tank I change over 50% of the water religiously every week, being 3x5 gallon home brew bins worth. Now with my po4 above 3mgl out the tap logic would tell you that if there was none in the tank to start with after a water change I should have at least 1.5mgl in the tank but the test kits shows no where near those levels, not even 1mgl.   So, I start adding po4. 

So now my philosophy has changed from worrying about having to much po4 in my tank. The worry is is there enough and while I add it in my dosing which is one less thing to worry about if I do have any problems the fact that there also MAY be high levels in my tap water virtually guarantees I'm ok po4 wise. You could think the same way with your nitrates and see it more as a security blanket.

There are two ends of the spectrum when it comes to ferts and plant health, either enough or not enough and all the problems appear at the not enough end. If you think you have everything else in order co2 and circulation wise have a little experiment to see if you can reduce the kno3 gradually over a long period but I wouldn't get to hung up on the results of test kits. The only one's you can start graduating in mgl portions costs hundreds even thousands of pounds. Everything in a planted tank isn't exact science, test kits give false results depending on loads of things like age, temp of water, chemicals you're not testing for and even how the user perceives the colour. The drop checker results are delayed by a couple of hours and depends on it's position in the tank as well as the fluid it's in. Everything is best guess for the hobbyist.

I believe that something in my tapwater gives a false po4 reading which seems to diminish rapidly in the tank or maybe now I've got my other things in order my plants really are sucking up po4, who knows? I'm not science enough to explain it but adding it makes me sure it's not a problem.


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