API test kit, help!

[duanes]

What is a good nitrate level?

To me a good nitrate level would be the same as what is found in nature, where my fish are found.
Since I am a bit anal about this, I test for nitrate where ever I travel.
I tested the Cenotes in Mexico, average 0.00ppm.
Cenote Escondido below

I tested when in the forest outside Santa Marta Colombia in a tributary of the Rio Magdalena, 0.00ppm but
in that same river next to a banana plantation that was heavily fertilized there seemed to be a dead zone where nitrates were in the 10 -20 ppm range.
The locals I talked to near the plantations said, to find the chogorros (cichlids) I was looking for, I would need to go upstream away from that area.
a shot from upstream below

Here in Panama in places where my current fish were caught 0-5 ppm was common.
Below the test results of a small stream just out of town, in a forest near where I live.

Before I retired as a chemist, it was my job to test the incoming raw water from Lake Michigan at least once per shift, most of the year nitrate averaged < 1ppm, although after a long winter, during lake turnover it would sometimes climb to almost 5 ppm (temporarily).

I try to maintain an average of <5ppm in my cichlid tanks, with every other day 30-40% water changes, and by using heavy plantings in refugiums.
If however, I were to test Asian rice paddies where many Anabantoids are found, or African savannah water holes bichirs, or certain catfish are found my results may be quite different.
But because I keep rheophillic cichlids that require pristine water a number closest to 0.00ppm is my goal.

Elevated Nitrate in itself is not "acutely" dangerous for most fish we keep, but .....
seems to have long term chronic effects, for certain especially long lived large cichlids like oscars, Uaru, and Geophagines.
You've only to check history in the disease section, and peruse the HITH posts, that say
"My oscar was fine for 2 years, but now is getting scarred up".
Nitrate 20, 30, or 40 ppm.
And where the spot for water change schedule is found....25% or 30% every 2 weeks, or even less

 

[jjohnwm]

When you are nearly "off the charts"...and you are!...that indicates that water changes are much too small and/or infrequent. You may be correct in your interpretation of that result as 80ppm; to my eye it looks closer to the 160ppm mark. Either way, it's too high. That's what happens with any tank when you don't change water, and it happens all the faster when the tank houses lots of large predatory fish, which probably get fed far too heavily.

Like Esox said, there is a lot of disagreement regarding how bad nitrates are, and how heavily concentrated they must be before becoming a problem. Some people set an acceptable...to them...limit of 5ppm, some say 10ppm, some say 20, or 40, or...? duanes mentions the near-zero readings he has found in numerous natural settings, and that prompted me to check natural levels whenever I had the chance...admittedly, only here in Canada where Covid has found me trapped for the past couple years. I have never found any perceptible nitrate levels in the numerous water bodies where I have fished; even my little backyard inground pond, which gets one single 100% water change each spring...still shows zero perceptible nitrates just before that change!

So I personally can't accept the idea that a level such as yours should be considered acceptable. A keeper who proposes that it is "fine" sounds to me as though he is "putting his mouth where his money is". In other words, he likely has high nitrate levels, so rather than correcting the issue, he convinces himself and others that it isn't an issue. This ignores the fact that if nitrates have risen to such extreme levels, so have many other potential toxins produced by the metabolism of the fish...things which we cannot easily test for, but which will be diluted and removed by water changes in the same manner as the nitrates that we can detect. To me, anything that unnatural is an issue. Arguing otherwise is reminiscent of the Canadian government's approach to the problem of poverty; when they decided that too many people were living below the poverty line...they "solved" it by lowering the line!

One last comment: when you do your water change...do a real water change! Swapping out, say, 30% may sound like a lot to you...but if your nitrate level is 100ppm, you will still have 70ppm after such a change. You will still be far above the level that most people find acceptable. So consider aiming for much larger-volume changes...70%, 80% or more. Make a difference!

If one of my tanks showed that frightening (to me...) deep burgundy colour on a nitrate test, I would likely do a 30% - 40% change today...and then another similar one tomorrow...and again the next day. After that, fin-level changes as often as required to maintain whatever level you feel you can live with.

Again, all personal opinion; worth what it costs, i.e. nothing.

Esox, I know I owe you a PM; I'm getting to it!

 

[Caveden]

When you are nearly "off the charts"...and you are!...that indicates that water changes are much too small and/or infrequent. You may be correct in your interpretation of that result as 80ppm; to my eye it looks closer to the 160ppm mark. Either way, it's too high. That's what happens with any tank when you don't change water, and it happens all the faster when the tank houses lots of large predatory fish, which probably get fed far too heavily.

Like Esox said, there is a lot of disagreement regarding how bad nitrates are, and how heavily concentrated they must be before becoming a problem. Some people set an acceptable...to them...limit of 5ppm, some say 10ppm, some say 20, or 40, or...? duanes mentions the near-zero readings he has found in numerous natural settings, and that prompted me to check natural levels whenever I had the chance...admittedly, only here in Canada where Covid has found me trapped for the past couple years. I have never found any perceptible nitrate levels in the numerous water bodies where I have fished; even my little backyard inground pond, which gets one single 100% water change each spring...still shows zero perceptible nitrates just before that change!

So I personally can't accept the idea that a level such as yours should be considered acceptable. A keeper who proposes that it is "fine" sounds to me as though he is "putting his mouth where his money is". In other words, he likely has high nitrate levels, so rather than correcting the issue, he convinces himself and others that it isn't an issue. This ignores the fact that if nitrates have risen to such extreme levels, so have many other potential toxins produced by the metabolism of the fish...things which we cannot easily test for, but which will be diluted and removed by water changes in the same manner as the nitrates that we can detect. To me, anything that unnatural is an issue. Arguing otherwise is reminiscent of the Canadian government's approach to the problem of poverty; when they decided that too many people were living below the poverty line...they "solved" it by lowering the line!

One last comment: when you do your water change...do a real water change! Swapping out, say, 30% may sound like a lot to you...but if your nitrate level is 100ppm, you will still have 70ppm after such a change. You will still be far above the level that most people find acceptable. So consider aiming for much larger-volume changes...70%, 80% or more. Make a difference!

If one of my tanks showed that frightening (to me...) deep burgundy colour on a nitrate test, I would likely do a 30% - 40% change today...and then another similar one tomorrow...and again the next day. After that, fin-level changes as often as required to maintain whatever level you feel you can live with.

Again, all personal opinion; worth what it costs, i.e. nothing.

Esox, I know I owe you a PM; I'm getting to it!

I never mentioned it wasn’t an issue though. That’s why i asked for advice on nitrates haha . I know the level of nitrates is exceptionally high, as I mentioned, never was convincing myself it was fine. Perhaps you misread what I wrote? I wrote that my other readings (pH, ammonia, nitrite) were at normal conditions, but my nitrates were terrible.

one question; could my high nitrates be because of a sudden high ammonia outbreak I had recently? Around the time I created this thread, also the reason why I created this thread, was because I had noticed my fish losing their slimecoat and inactive. I got worried so I went to buy the api test kit, which is the most reliable. Wouldn’t believe when I tell you it was at 8.0ppm or higher of ammonia. I had no clue what caused the sudden increase, but luckily all the fish survived (bichirs and datnoids, way hardier than anyone thinks).

 

[jjohnwm]

I never mentioned it wasn’t an issue though. That’s why i asked for advice on nitrates haha ☺.

I never said you did...but you did mention someone who told you it was "fine", so I thought I'd throw my oar into the water and suggest that you hit him/her with it...

8 ppm of ammonia can't account for 100-ish ppm of nitrate; that's an insane ammonia reading, hard to believe the fish survived it unscathed. If I were you I would be putting some effort into finding the cause of that. Not sure I trust that test result.

 

[Caveden]

I never said you did...but you did mention someone who told you it was "fine", so I thought I'd throw my oar into the water and suggest that you hit him/her with it...

8 ppm of ammonia can't account for 100-ish ppm of nitrate; that's an insane ammonia reading, hard to believe the fish survived it unscathed. If I were you I would be putting some effort into finding the cause of that. Not sure I trust that test result.

The day before my ammonia readings reached 8ppm++, I had removed my arowana from the tank to sell it. I don’t know if something got added to the water or whatnot, but the test results were correct. I also couldn’t believe when I saw more than 8ppm of ammonia. Immediately did a huge water change and ammonia dropped to 4ppm.

Sorry what Do you mean 8ppm of ammonia can’t account for 100 ppm of nitrate? Are you saying the nitrate should be more?

oops just reread what you wrote. Seems like I read wrongly, not you ??

Edit: I just remembered when catching the arowana the net was rusted. Threw it away already, but could it be the reason?

 

[jjohnwm]

I'm no chemist, maybe duanes could elaborate on this? What I meant was that a reading of 8ppm ammonia would not equate to such a high nitrate reading and that there must already have been a very high nitrate level to begin with. Each ammonia molecule has one nitrogen atom; so does each nitrate ion, so how could 8ppm of one produce so much more of the other?

I'm way out of my depth here, we need a chemist!

Well, actually, my tanks are okay...but you need a chemist, and I'm obviously not it.

By the way...if you had 8ppm ammonia, and then changed half the water to get it to 4ppm...that's still dangerously high. That's what I was referring to earlier; when you have a water problem, a 50% water change is not "huge", in fact it's not even adequate.

 

[Caveden]

I'm no chemist, maybe duanes could elaborate on this? What I meant was that a reading of 8ppm ammonia would not equate to such a high nitrate reading and that there must already have been a very high nitrate level to begin with. Each ammonia molecule has one nitrogen atom; so does each nitrate ion, so how could 8ppm of one produce so much more of the other?

I'm way out of my depth here, we need a chemist!

Well, actually, my tanks are okay...but you need a chemist, and I'm obviously not it.

By the way...if you had 8ppm ammonia, and then changed half the water to get it to 4ppm...that's still dangerously high. That's what I was referring to earlier; when you have a water problem, a 50% water change is not "huge", in fact it's not even adequate.

Yep, ammonia should always be 0. I did a 80% water change in fact to get it down to 4ppm. The next day I did another one. Ammonia disappeared after a week

 

[GolemGolem]

I had ammonia levels like that when I was trying to get my first tank back in cycled. Had to do water changes to keep my ammonia lower so it would cycle. When it did nitrates must of been 300+. All good now.
Though in an established tank, what about old tank syndrome? If someone has hundreds of ppm nitrates shouldn't they do lots of small daily water changes over the next couple weeks to keep the PH from swinging too wildly?

 

[jjohnwm]

If your tank is cycled it shouldn't take a week for ammonia to disappear because there should never be so much. And, assuming your source water has no ammonia, if you still had 4ppm after an 80% water change, that means that you had something like 20ppm before. This can't be correct.

G GolemGolem , that's why I mentioned a few days of 30-40% changes to drop levels before switching over to larger changes in an effort to maintain the lower levels. But, again, I have never come close to dealing with those levels of nitrates. I'm just trying to be cautious.

There's no such thing as "old tank syndrome". It's an excuse created for "old water syndrome" and it won't happen if water is changed regularly.

Man oh man...where's a chemist when you need one?

 

[Caveden]

If your tank is cycled it shouldn't take a week for ammonia to disappear. And, assuming your source water has no ammonia, if you still had 4ppm after an 80% water change, that means that you had something like 20ppm before. This can't be correct.

I had ammonia levels like that when I was trying to get my first tank back in cycled. Had to do water changes to keep my ammonia lower so it would cycle. When it did nitrates must of been 300+. All good now.
Though in an established tank, what about old tank syndrome? If someone has hundreds of ppm nitrates shouldn't they do lots of small daily water changes over the next couple weeks to keep the PH from swinging too wildly?

to answer both of you, I legit have no clue at all. I’m no chemist either, I had no idea what was wrong with my tank 3 weeks ago.

edit: sorry, just checked again with the chat I had with the person who helped me; ammonia reduced to 2ppm within the 3rd day from 8ppm++
I did, in fact do a 80% water change. I really have no clue but it did reduce to 4ppm