Nitrate reading: 40-50 ppm
- Thread starter sepehr
- Start date
BettaFishMommy
finkids make me happy :-)
Prime won't lower the nitrate level, it will (runs and grabs Prime bottle, lol) "Prime detoxifies nitrite and nitrate, allowing the biofilter to more efficiently remove them".
wait a minute...... we, the fishkeepers, remove nitrates during water changes. the biofilter creates nitrates as the end product of ammonia>nitrite>nitrate.
me thinks the words on the Prime bottle are a lil :screwy:
40 to 50 ppm nitrates is nothing to worry about, IMO. it's when you get up there to the 80's and above that you should be concerned. my planted tank quite often will be around 50 ppm nitrate and i never worry.
what is your stocking on this tank? and how often do you do water changes? do you gravel vac at all? and what sort of filters are you running?
wait a minute...... we, the fishkeepers, remove nitrates during water changes. the biofilter creates nitrates as the end product of ammonia>nitrite>nitrate.
me thinks the words on the Prime bottle are a lil :screwy:
40 to 50 ppm nitrates is nothing to worry about, IMO. it's when you get up there to the 80's and above that you should be concerned. my planted tank quite often will be around 50 ppm nitrate and i never worry.
what is your stocking on this tank? and how often do you do water changes? do you gravel vac at all? and what sort of filters are you running?
test your test kit with a nitrate reference solution. if it turns out it's right it's still no big deal. w/c's should certainly help but i think the epa guidelines for drinking water are ~45ppm... so your tap could potentially carry that much. i'd certainly be testing that.
if you are dosing ferts or have a very stocked tank that could very well be the case. it can also be from your source. Test your water source for ammonia as well.
Hi, I'm the same user who told you about the pencilfish
My wc's are 35% weekly. I USED TO DO larger wc's using 3/4 ro and 1/4 tap and now I use 2/3 ro and 1/3 tap so maybe my tap water is the cause. I'm going to run a nitrate test on the tap water and I'll let you know. I have a canister filter with 400G/H capacity. Nevertheless, the fish seem to be fine it's just the high nitrate readings that concerns me. I wonder if the levels would still rise until the next wc.
OK, I'll do that and I'll keep you posted. Please read my reply to Bettafishmommy as well
I am dosing ferts, the Seachem line and about stocking I only have different varieties of tetras and I'd say I'm about 75% to the max. capacity. I am going to test the tap water's nitrates levels because it was ONLY after the last wc when I got this reading and I used larger portion of tap water than I used to. I used 1/3 instead of 1/4 and the rest of the water portion comes from ro. I wonder if the nitrate levels would still rise until the next wc? The fish seem to be fine though.
Yep that's what I'm thinking also. I'm going to test the tap water and I'll let you know.
either way 40-50 ppm nitrate reading is nothing to worry about.
if you are dosing the seachem line(the whole shebang) then you are also adding nitrate when dosing.this will add to your ppm count...
if you are dosing the seachem line(the whole shebang) then you are also adding nitrate when dosing.this will add to your ppm count...