Nitrate question

[screaminleeman]

This is weird. The water here (Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada) has 0 nitrates in the water. I Just tested it last week. I keep all my nitrates under 10. Not hard at all. 50% WC once a week (2 weeks over the holidays). I keep 2 types of puffers. They're messy eaters and require pristine water conditions.

Not weird at all,

Pardon my less than excellent geographic knowledge of my neighbors in the great white north, but I look at it like this.

Beer:

Drink taste test:
Molson vs. National Bohemian
LeBatts vs. Bush
Moosehead vs. Miller
Grizzley vs. Coors

I have never thought of the water quality in the USA even being able to be mentioned in the same sentence as the crystal clear virgin waters of Canada.

I would throw a snide comment in about your water may be 100x better then ours, but at least we are not freezing our scrotum off, but with the temperature in Maryland ranging in the teens to twenties lately, even that falls through as a major FAIL!

Oh well, keep brewing the good stuff and export it down here.

Heck this talk has got me thirsty, I think I will stop off at the liquors store on the way home after work and grab a case of Molson export ale and I probably will not even think Nitrate until .....

 

[geronimo69]

Not weird at all,

Pardon my less than excellent geographic knowledge of my neighbors in the great white north, but I look at it like this.

Beer:

Drink taste test:
Molson vs. National Bohemian
LeBatts vs. Bush
Moosehead vs. Miller
Grizzley vs. Coors

I have never thought of the water quality in the USA even being able to be mentioned in the same sentence as the crystal clear virgin waters of Canada.

I would throw a snide comment in about your water may be 100x better then ours, but at least we are not freezing our scrotum off, but with the temperature in Maryland ranging in the teens to twenties lately, even that falls through as a major FAIL!

Oh well, keep brewing the good stuff and export it down here.

Heck this talk has got me thirsty, I think I will stop off at the liquors store on the way home after work and grab a case of Molson export ale and I probably will not even think Nitrate until .....

This was awesome. You're right, it's damn cold here. Oh well, with the storms in the East, it doens't look any warmer in Philly or New York for that matter.

I'm about 8 hours north of Minne. The temp swings are aweful. I drink beer in the summer to keep cool, but to "warm up" (from the inside of course) in the winter. I always have an excuse for the stuff.

 

[screaminleeman]

I live on city water, and have zero nitrates in my water.

Realistically though, you should try to keep your nitrates below 40 ppm, in order for your fish to thrive.

Goldfish are notoriously sensitive to nitrates, and keeping them below 20 ppm is ideal, so they don't end up with swim bladder issues. In my keeping of goldfish, I have found high nitrates to be MORE detrimental than an ammonia spike.

Tropicals can handle a little higher levels of nitrates, but where they come from, barely ever are forced to live in nitrates in the wild. I realize that this is probably an unrealistic goal in the aquarium environment, but as with everything else humans keep in captivity, shouldn't we strive for conditions better than that in the wild? I guess I'm really going off on a tangent here, sorry!

Me, personally, I wouldn't keep fish if I had high nitrates in my water, or I would filter my water to make it more appropriate to sustain life. I know that people can drink nitrates, but we aren't completely submerged in it, and every single one of our metabolic cycles taking place in that "dirty" water.

I have the exact opposite situation. My mailing address is Westminster, MD however I do not live in the incorporated "city" limits of Westminster. I am on a well/ septic water setup.

I moved from Baltimore out to the "country" to "Westminster" in 1979. I was use to the taste of city water growing up in Baltimore and thought the "Country water" in Carroll County Maryland tasted raunchy. I had a water purification system installed to correct this problem.

While I have had no challenge with the "taste" of the untreated country water anymore, I am now presented with a new challenge (Nitrates) since getting into fishkeeping around two years ago.

Whatever the home water filtration system does, it does not affect the Nitrate level in the water and contains zero chlorine. I guess that is one bright side that I should look at in that my water requires no conditioning and I pump WC's directly from the sink into all of my fishtanks. No conditioning, hauling buckets etc...

 

[Itsadeepbluesea]

I'm sure it has already been said but if you have high levels of nitrates in your water supply you can use at RO filter to get "clean" water.

 

[screaminleeman]

I'm sure it has already been said but if you have high levels of nitrates in your water supply you can use at RO filter to get "clean" water.

I require between 500 to 1,000 gallons of water per week for WCs in my tanks. It is not financially feasible to RO this quantity of water weekly. I am easily able to maintain zero nitrites and ammonia and every person that has visited remark about how crisp and clear the water is in all 19 of my tanks! My water is extremely clean, it just starts out of the spigot at around 15ppm nitrates.

 

[Piscine]

So you have enough money to have enough tanks to require 500-1000 gallons of water a week, but you can't afford water (or equipment to filter water) to put in them? Sounds like someone needs to get their fish-keeping priorities straight..

I have always been a quality over quantity kinda guy. I'd rather have 3 tanks I can properly take care of than to have 20 tanks that have bad water quality.

 

[CLDarnell]

So you have enough money to have enough tanks to require 500-1000 gallons of water a week, but you can't afford water (or equipment to filter water) to put in them? Sounds like someone needs to get their fish-keeping priorities straight..

I have always been a quality over quantity kinda guy. I'd rather have 3 tanks I can properly take care of than to have 20 tanks that have bad water quality.

That's a bit judgemental. I have seen his posts around here and he does a nice job with his fish. His original question wasn't one of desperation, but more inquiring on how to deal with high nitrate tap water.

He has a plan that works for him. I would say his priorities are straight.

 

[Piscine]

That's a bit judgemental. I have seen his posts around here and he does a nice job with his fish. His original question wasn't one of desperation, but more inquiring on how to deal with high nitrate tap water.

He has a plan that works for him. I would say his priorities are straight.

You're right, that was a little judgmental . I went off on a tangent after reading all the posts about not caring what the nitrates are and just changing water. You still have to control those nitrates guys. Ignoring it and pretending that it isn't toxic is irresponsible. Kudos to the OP for trying to become a better fish-keeper.

 

[screaminleeman]

You're right, that was a little judgmental . I went off on a tangent after reading all the posts about not caring what the nitrates are and just changing water. You still have to control those nitrates guys. Ignoring it and pretending that it isn't toxic is irresponsible. Kudos to the OP for trying to become a better fish-keeper.

I will always continue to improve my skills as a hobbiest. I can not deny that I flew over the cookoo nest when I got into the fishkeeping hobby just under two years ago. I am not sure if "addicting" is an accurate term to describe my initial "attraction" to the hobby, but I did go way overboard and got myself in maybe a little over my head. Oh what the heck, I jumped right into the deep end.

I hope my trial and error efforts to improve the quality of water that I can provide to my fish does not infuriate other fishkeepers, but hopefully can just provide a means for which other fishkeepers need not make the same results as myself.

I will probably get lambasted for admitting this but I did try another method that failied me miserably. I own a spring fed farm pond that is over 100' in diameter and has been dredged to 15' deep. It has numerous below ground spring feeds and a couple of above ground spring feeds. I built a spring feed from a 6" diameter PVC from the spring into a sediment dump off pond which then overflows into the main pond. This spring is from a different water source then the well water that feed my house. It is from an extremely deep source, and in the extreme heat of the summer last August, the maximum temperature of the spring feed reached 13 degrees celcius.

I collected this water (very easily) as a source for my fish. I did the full gambit of standard water test from the API liquid test kit and did find that this source contained far less nitrates then any of the wells in the neighborhood, although still was not a zero nitrate level to start with. I was faced with disasterous results. The algea/ aquatic vegetation growth that resulted was so overwelming that I can not even begin to explain to work required to get the water back to a "crystal clear" state that I am accustomed to.

My brother said something like, "Green water is healthy, don't sweat it!".

ARRGH! I can not look at a puke green tank regardless of it's supposed "health". IMO this defeats the entire purpose of the hobby for me. I need a heathy balance.

My water must be crystal clear in order for the hobby to be "fun" for me, however I do understand the "Crystal Clear" has less then nothing to do with healthy and I aim to provide them with the healthiest possible water (That still remains crystal clear) possible.

 

[geronimo69]

Do you know what caused the algae when you used spring water? Phosphates???