Chloramine and Nitrates

[Dahlia]

I've been pondering chemistry this evening.

If my county's water supply has a pretty decent amount of chloramine in it, and I add Prime to break that down when I do water changes... which turns part of it into ammonia... am I essentially adding more nitrates than I can remove from my tank? Water tests on my water out of the tap show a pretty high ammonia level, which presumably my bacteria takes care of. I'm a little worried that this means I never am really removing nitrates from my tank, though.

[happychem]

I doubt it.

The amounts of chlorine or chloramine added to water is pretty low, even if you're measuring 'high' ammonia from the tap, compare the scale of the ammonia test to the scale of the nitrate test. If memory serves, depending on the test, ammonia tops out around 10ppm, that's still fairly low for nitrate.

I've seen a number of values given for 'maximum' nitrate levels, I'd advise to keep NO3 under 40, some will suggest higher. If you're keeping live plants, even less of a problem, but I digress.

Keep up with your water changes and you'll be just fine.

[RTR]

I'd push for lower nitrate concentrations than 40ppm myself, especially in a planted tank. The ammonia contribution to total nitrate is small in relation to that of the fish, as happychem said. Testing the tap itself for nitrate level is good - that will matter on the business of keeping nitrate titer low in the tank.

[happychem]

What I meant about the 'planted tank' was that if she was keeping live plants, they'd help to keep down the NO3 that would arise from the chloramine-NH3. I guess I phrased it poorly, shoulda added it in a seperate paragraph...