High Nitrate? Dangerous?

[ceewah]

Hello,

I've recently moved to a new place and I noticed that my nitrates go around 40-60? When I used to live at my old place, my nitrates would always be at 0. How dangerous is it to have high nitrates? I do my regular water change 2 times a week during Wednesdays and Saturdays and still have the same results. I don't know how dangerous is this, but someone please tell me how to lower my nitrate back to 0. I don't want to lose some expensive monsters.


Thanks,

Gerard

 

[~ocean]

plants eat up nitrates... those high nitrates aren't good... at all...

 

[vaine111]

I'm not saying its ok but if you are under 100 it shouldn't affect your fish too bad.
With how some people feed their fish they would have to water change after every feeding.

 

[justonemoretank]

I'm guessing you're using tap water? Have you tested it all by itself? If it's in the tap water, then that would explain it being in the tank... I don't understand why your nitrates were ever at zero; this would generally indicate an un-cycled system.

 

[Bderick67]

Nitrate levels of zero are abnormal. A better understanding of the nitrogen cycle would help you to understand this. A good target range for nitrate levels is 20ppm.

 

[packer43064]

Sounds like the water supply is loaded with nitrates. You already do two WC's a week and it's still at 60ppm. So that's 3.5 days and it gets to 40-60ppm, that is ALOT!! Most people get 40 maybe 60 in 7 days not 3.5 days. It has to be your water, if so then there's not alot you can do.

Like another poster said, 40-60 between 3.5 days isn't that bad. As long as it's not weeks on end in this kind of enviroment.

 

[~ocean]

0 isn't the best water conditions either...

 

[SimonL]

40-60 isn't going to harm your fish, over 100 is another story...ask your LFS to test their own water if they ever give you **** about your water quality lol.

 

[ceewah]

Okay, thanks for all the replies. I actually use the test strips, and 0 is probably not what I used to get. I would say somewhere around 0-20? I am not sure because I just identify the parameters by just looking at the test strip. All I know is I never saw "pinkish" color on the test strip by the nitrates.

I don't have plants in my tank.. Should I put some? So is everyone saying in here the ideal nitrates should be at 20?


Thanks in advance.

 

[justonemoretank]

Is the nitrate coming out of the tap? I'd test the tapwater and see how high nitrates are there. You might want to invest in an RO unit or something. Plants could be more trouble than they're worth -- you'd need the right lighting, substrate, possibly CO2, etc... and they'd take a while to get established. However, I'm still not sure if this is in your tank that the nitrates are created (indicating possible overstocking) or if it's how the water is when it comes out of the tap.