Has anyone ever used a product called Nitra-Zorb by Aquarium Pharmaceuticals to remove nitrate from their tanks? How useful was it? Thanks.
Nitra-Zorb by Aquairum Phar.
- Thread starter meng-chieh
- Start date
As RTR likes to say, nitrates are not only harmful in it of themselves, but are an indicator of other declining water quality. It only makes sense to do water changes instead, with nitrate removing resins, you are just removing your indicator of water quality.
Fortunately I did water tests for other substances - nitrite, ammonia, and pH. I'm sure that there are other substances that may be present, but my kit doesn't test for them though...
As for my nitrite, it's sitting at 0 ppm
pH is at around 6.8
And ammonia is 0 ppm too.
As for my nitrite, it's sitting at 0 ppm
pH is at around 6.8
And ammonia is 0 ppm too.
There are many other things in your water you cant test for, yet are still vital or deadly to your fish.
Don't feel too defeated meng-chieh, you'll find many of us do as slip (and RTR) said, use nitrates as the indicator and therefor don't use this type of chemical filtration. I'm quite certain it works as it claims but haven't and wouldn't use it. I still have the unused Bio-chem Zorb that came with my XP3.
What other substances are you people refering to? And is water-change the only way to remove them? Thanks for all the replies thus far.
I use this all the time in my filter and it works great, I recharge it every other week and replace it about every 6 months. The elevated nitrates can idicate other problems, but I also have the unfortunate situation of having elevated nitrates in my tape water (10 to 20 ppm depending on day)...............I like my aquarium to site at 0-5 ppm so I would rather use this than not.
All the organics generated by the fish and bacteria are wastes (they would not be excreted if they were not, they would be conserved), plus excess phosphates, sulfates, chlorides, oxides, etc. from foods and evaporation concentration, hormones and pheromones, cyclic organic such as phenols (half-life in aquatic systems ~18 months, and they stink!). The tiny handful for things which we can measure are trivial compared to the myriad we cannot test. Nitrate is an indicator. It is toxic itself long term, but the levels for toxicity vary hugely with the type of fish. It serves better as an easily tested indicator of general pollution. Remove that specifically and particularly and all you have done is blind yourself to the organics. As with a great many things about fish tanks, folks get an idea and never really test it against the real world. Water changes are cheap and easy and out-perform all the absorbtion resins and devices in the world by a very, very wide margin.