Are my narsty pond snails loaded with nitrates?

[knifegill]

I've been raising snails for a long time in a 5gal hex. I only do large water changes twice a year, but do take a little of the green water out with a turkey baster everyday for my daphnia cultures, etc. It occurs to me that I can't test the water because it is greener than pea soup. Since I can pretty well rest assured the nitrates are sky-high, I was wondering: When I feed these snails to my fish, am I dosing them with nitrates?

 

[packer43064]

Nitrates are in the water. Unless your dumping water into your other fish tanks then your not. Plus even if you added 5 gallons of over 100ppm nitrates to a large tank it isn't going to jump up nitrates in the large tank.

 

[knifegill]

Sounds good to me. Except, if nitrates stay in the water, how do they harm creatures?