API test kit

[esoxlucius]

You guys are so lucky. 50ppm is the legal limit here. Not only is it bad for our aquariums, but it's also been found to have harmful effects on pregnant women and increase the chances of miscarriage.

Nasty stuff. I wish I was in the US. This is just another reason for me to move to the states one day!

Where in the uk are you from? I'm in rossendale in lancs, my water's perfect. 0ppm nitrate and 7.0ph.

 

[The Mother Confessor]

I'm in Norwich, Norfolk. I wish we had your water! Your very lucky!

Our yearly water report makes for a depressing read for fish keeping. It even has nitrite and ammonium in it due to chloramine use here. The Nitrates were that bad once that I had the water company out to test them, but it took weeks for them to arrive, and by then it was reading at JUST under the legal limit.

If it wasn't for the need to replenish the minerals, vitamins, nutrients, and the all important KH, I wouldn't bother changing it at all! If only it were that simple!

Living here has certainly sharpened up my chemistry skills when it comes to fish keeping!

 

[esoxlucius]

I'm in Norwich, Norfolk. I wish we had your water! Your very lucky!

Our yearly water report makes for a depressing read for fish keeping. It even has nitrite and ammonium in it due to chloramine use here. The Nitrates were that bad once that I had the water company out to test them, but it took weeks for them to arrive, and by then it was reading at JUST under the legal limit.

If it wasn't for the need to replenish the minerals, vitamins, nutrients, and the all important KH, I wouldn't bother changing it at all! If only it were that simple!

Living here has certainly sharpened up my chemistry skills when it comes to fish keeping!

My god, norwich. I don't know what's worse, your water or your football team!!!
I didn't realise that some parts of the uk were that bad water wise, i'm very lucky, good old north west water board looking after my water for me.

 

[The Mother Confessor]

I'm sure the Daily Mail ran an article the other day about how the North had the best water in the UK! Unsurprisingly, us south easterly folk got awarded the worst lol.

Football. Oh God. I don't follow it personally, but I hear that Norwich are terrible? Delia Smith should stick to cooking!

You are very lucky! I'm so jealous!

 

[jaws7777]

Before you go down the RO route, I would recommend trying Seachem Safe and a bag of Seachem Purigen to go in the filter, it will really help with crappy tap water, and if your water is anything like mine, there will be a lot more than just nitrates in it!

You may already know what both of these are, but if you don't, here's a quick explanation of why they are good for bad tap water.

Purigen will help you by removing Ammonia as it is produced, stopping it from ever turning into Nitrates, which gives your filter a chance to concentrate on sorting out the bad tap water. It also removes tannins, odours and basically acts like carbon. It's a great water polisher. Seachem claim it wont leach anything back into the water once it's full, and it visibly changes colour when it needs recharging. You recharge it with a weak bleach solution, then soak it in Safe to remove it. It's very very cheap for how long it lasts, and you don't need much of it at all, so it doesn't take up much space in the filter! If you do get it, I recommend getting twice as much as you need, so you can have one recharged and waiting to go in. It takes a day or two to recharge so it's much easier to have two lots of it.

Seachem Safe is just a powdered version of Seachem Prime, but it works out crazy cheap compared to Prime. It wont remove the nitrates, but it will detoxify them so that it wont upset your fish, and it still allows them to be accessible to your filter bacteria. It detoxifies Nitrite and Ammonia, Chlorine and Chloramine. It's the cheapest tap water conditioner I have ever found, for sure. You add a fair bit more to detoxify the bad stuff, but still so little that it costs practically nothing. A large tub will probably last you years.

I would also recommend trying some plants if your fish wont destroy them, they are good for nitrate removal. Also, with heavy fish like Oscars, get yourself a FX4 or FX6 as a treat. You won't regret it. They are overkill, but that's perfect for people like us with crap water and messy fish.

I feel your pain. My nitrates came out at 50ppm until recently, for some reason, they have gone down to 30-40ppm now. With my set up, my nitrates are gone very quickly after a water change, and I deliberately overstock to help keep aggression levels down, and I also over feed! My nitrates are almost always at 0-5ppm.

I hope this helps! It's a lot cheaper and easier than RO!

Purigen wont remove nitrares already present in the tap water. It will only bind the ammonia stopping it from entering the nitrogen cycle

 

[The Mother Confessor]

Purigen will help you by removing Ammonia as it is produced, stopping it from ever turning into Nitrates, which gives your filter a chance to concentrate on sorting out the bad tap water.

J jaws7777 that is exactly what I said! Tldr? Hehe!

Not much removes Nitrates other than a water change which the op has tried, hence why I recommended plants, but Purigen is good because it will help stop his water getting worse by breaking the ammonia cycle. Anaerobic bacteria are good for Nitrates, they like a deep gravel bed, which you also need for plants.

 

[jaws7777]

Before you go down the RO route, I would recommend trying Seachem Safe and a bag of Seachem Purigen to go in the filter, it will really help with crappy tap water, and if your water is anything like mine, there will be a lot more than just nitrates in it!

No big deal but was referring to this.

 

[The Mother Confessor]

Ahh! Yeah my water has ammonium, Heavy metals, even nitrites sometimes although the Purigen doesn't help with the latter. It also helps with the tannins from wood, but doesn't leach it back in when full, and it's rechargeable. I really like the stuff.

I hate my water. You name it, it's in there! It's pretty rubbish!

 

[jaws7777]

Ahh! Yeah my water has ammonium, Heavy metals, even nitrites sometimes although the Purigen doesn't help with the latter. You name it, it's in there! It's pretty rubbish!

Man that sucks.

I had nitrates in my tap and added a whole home nitrate filter. Is that an option for you

 

[The Mother Confessor]

How does it work? Does it go on like a water softener?

I had a little one you did your water changes through once, was a resin exchange system, but the water literally trickled out in drips and at the time I was running a 30 tank breeding room, so it took days to change all the tanks. Plus, the pressure was that extreme that the hose popped off the end all the time lol. I soon gave up with that one.