When do you know your on the third stage of cycling (Nitrates)? Right now I have no ammonia and high nitrates and nirtrites. WIll it happen whenever the nitrites totally dissapear?
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- Thread starter Mantis_22
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The NitrItes will eventually start to drop off as well, leaving you with lots of NitrAtes. These won't drop off on their own -- regular water changes will do the trick. Once the Nitrites have fallen do one massive change (say 75%) to lower Nitrates and then sufficient to keep around or below 40ppm. I change 20% per week.
NJ,
The EPA allows up to somewhere in the mid 40s ppm for our tapwater, so staying south of 20 may not be practical for many. I think 40 ppm is a reasonable high end. The ideal target comes up every now and again with some folks, like me, saying south of 40 and others, like yourself, saying south of 20. We're both in some excellent company. RTR covered it well in this thread :
Plants offer another way of exporting nitrates but don't eliminate the need for water changes.
The EPA allows up to somewhere in the mid 40s ppm for our tapwater, so staying south of 20 may not be practical for many. I think 40 ppm is a reasonable high end. The ideal target comes up every now and again with some folks, like me, saying south of 40 and others, like yourself, saying south of 20. We're both in some excellent company. RTR covered it well in this thread :
Plants offer another way of exporting nitrates but don't eliminate the need for water changes.
Uhh, tap water doesn't have nitrates. Since there is no ammonia in the water, there are no nitrates.
NJDF, if this is true, then the EPA would not have placed a maximum nitrate content of 40 ppm for tap water.
NJ
Tapwater can pickup nitrates back at their source. Fertilizer runoff, farm runoff (from, um, the other fertilizers
), leaching from septic fields, etc. all get into the groundwater before it becomes tap.
In some areas (like sunny NYC) its fairly minimal (high end under 10ppm, generally much lower), but in other areas nitrates can get fairly high.
Tapwater can pickup nitrates back at their source. Fertilizer runoff, farm runoff (from, um, the other fertilizers
), leaching from septic fields, etc. all get into the groundwater before it becomes tap.In some areas (like sunny NYC) its fairly minimal (high end under 10ppm, generally much lower), but in other areas nitrates can get fairly high.