High nitrates from tap

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Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Sep 1, 2014
107
26
36
PA
I’ve been doing twice weekly water changes with Prime, thinning out the stock in my tank, and loading my filters with Matrix and Purigen to keep my nitrates down. The readings are always higher than I’d like (around 40ppm with test strips and at least 40 ppm with the liquid test kit) so I decided to test my tap water today. The tap test came out the same color as 2 out of 3 tanks. The 180 was slightly darker than the other tubes. Anyone else deal with this? My fish seem fine but idk how this may or may not affect them long term. Is there any way to lower my nitrates without having to deal with reverse osmosis water?
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Wow! That's a lot of nitrates for tap water. I feel for you. Without RO system, not sure myself on what to do. Perhaps there's been others with a lot more experience who have some words of wisdom.
 
I'm not sure how effective it actually is (never used it myself), but you could look into using API Nitra-Zorb in your filters.
 
Nitrate is the driving factor in our hobby, for anyone who has ridiculous amounts of it in their tap water, as you have, it's a real bummer. I too wish i had some words of wisdom but it's a difficult one. You're not on your own that's for sure. I hope that some of the guys who are in the same boat as you chime in and offer some advice. Good luck.
 
The federal legal limit is 45ppm, your city is certainly pushing it.

On the short term your only real options are RO / plants / algae / anaerobic filter.

But on the long term you could get your water professionally tested and if it is over 45 get your government to do something about it. Not saying it would be easy or fast, but could be fun :)
 
Labs test for nitrate-nitrogen, and the API test kit tests for total nitrate. Your water maybe fine for drinking, but it is not necessarily safe for fish long term. You can either try to prepare the water in a 44gallon brute by using nitrate resins to remove the nitrate before you put it into your tank. Purigen doesn't remove nitrates. Another option is to setup a heavily planted tank and stock with very little fish.

For now, you can get some cheap pothos, rinse the roots to remove the dirt, and have it above water with only the roots submerged and see if that makes a dent.
 
I just read about the pothos idea today. I have some hanging in the kitchen already so I will try that. The thing is, my 10 gallon is already heavily planted with floating hornwort, anubias, java fern, java moss, moss balls, and guppy grass. Could i have a faulty testing kit? I figured all the plants would have given me a lower reading in that tank? My 180 has a pretty greedy pearsei that will eat anything I try to plant. I’ll see if the pothos roots will last. For my 75, I’ll start with pothos and some hornwort.
 
For vegetarians like pearsei, it is usually necessary to use planted sumps.
My pearsei and bocourt would eat any plant from water hyacinth to dandelions roots and all, even papyrus roots.
The thing about plants like pothos to be effective, you need about 10 times plant weight to every 1 pound of fish.
Do you live in a city or rural area (on a private well)?
The EPA MCL for total nitrate in the US at treatment plants is 10ppm .
 
I live in Philadelphia (city). I found a product called nitrazorb by api that I’m thinking about. It’s a special filtration media that reduces nitrates for 2 months and then has to be replaced. Anyone use it before?
 
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