Beginner question: What are Nitrites and Nitrates?

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NJ Devils Fan

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Oct 28, 2002
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Can someone provide a good link that has what each mean and how they relate to the nitrogen cycle. I want to add it to the "Common beginner mistakes" thread.
 
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RTR

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Actually wetman, I am not impressed with that article at all and would not suggest it - too much not-quite-correct info, obviously prepared by folks lacking basic understanding of the underlying processes.
 

wetmanNY

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never skeptical enough...

Sounds like me, RTR! The only problems I had with the article I linked to were the idea that dissolved ammonia excreted by fish ever exists in gas phase, and the common misidentification of the strains of bacteria responsible in freshwater (important if you're putting them in a bottle I guess.)

Aside from some oversimplified generalizations (like my own I bet) and some sentimental phrasing of the "Nature is too wise.." type... well, I hope the equations are right...

(maybe we should move to General Freshwater at this point...)

I don't want to worry about "bad" articles on the nitrogen cycle. There must be plenty of good explications on the internet to discuss. But what are the good ones you'd (you RTR, and all of y'all too) recommend? from fairly simplistic to quite technical.

There should be better links on this subject at www.skepticalaquarist.com I'm just re-editing it now, for the 2003 version. I'll credit any suggested links.. BTW I already
try to get a working link there to RTR's article in AquaSource, Feb 2000: http://www.tomgriffin.com/http://www.tomgriffin.com/aquamag/microbes1.html
 
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RTR

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I freely admit the 'Nature is wise" concept is good and vaild.

But then they segue right into "One of the most important classes of compounds that result from decomposition are the nitrogen-based substances, and the process through which they are gradually transformed is called the Nitrogen Cycle." Beep! Wrong! The Nitrogen Cycle is a great deal more than decomposition of nitrogenous compounds.

Follow that up with " How and who makes these transformations? They are microscopic beings called nitrifying bacteria, whose role in nature is that of decomposers of nitrogen compounds." Beep! Wrong again! Nitrifying bacteria in our language are those resonsible for oxidation of the breakdown products from nitrogenous compounds. The ones doing the breakdown are the heterotrophic bacteria, the saphrophytes (bacteria or fungi) and the inhabitants themselves (micro and macro).

This analysis could continue throught just about every topic sentence in the article, not even counting spelling errors, out-of-date nomenclature, etc.

It was a nice effort, ruined because they did not get review by anyone who knew.
 

RTR

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My nitrification article is:

http://www.aaquaria.com/aquasource/microbes1.shtml

But I think it need revising to reflect the reality of the quoted Tetra kits - the ammonia test reads total ammonia; the nitrite tests reads nitrite-nitrogen; the nitrate test reads total nitrate - maximum confusion if you are trying to do a nitrogen balance. I always convert to N for records, and made a mental slip when I wrote it, as if Tetra did as well.
 
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