Nitrate Reductor Question

[ILLdose13]

IMO a nitrate reductor is a bad idea.
Nitrates are just one of the pollutants in your tank and its the one that you can buy a test kit for.Remove the nitrates and now you have no way to judge water quality.
Waterchanging is part of fishkeeping.
Companies that try to sell you products that claim to reduce the need to give the fish clean water=snake oil salesmen

I most likely will be doing water changes twice a month, instead of twice a week. I think this is good enough to take out the other toxins. My nitrate levels were so high (~60ppm) even with so many water changes and limited feedings. My tap water doesn't even have nitrates. So IMO nitrate reductors are a great idea for my aquarium.

 

[johnptc]

IMO a nitrate reductor is a bad idea.
Nitrates are just one of the pollutants in your tank and its the one that you can buy a test kit for.Remove the nitrates and now you have no way to judge water quality.
Waterchanging is part of fishkeeping.
Companies that try to sell you products that claim to reduce the need to give the fish clean water=snake oil salesmen

for better or for worse i live in socal and water is not plentiful.....for a monster tank ( 10K HOUSE OF SAM) with lots of fish that would mean changing 2500+ GALLONS A DAY IS A BETTER CHOICE than a nitrate filter........i think i dont agree with you on this .... if you keep the nitrates down to around 10 ppm and run carbon to remove doc's then the water is pretty darn good and my fish both look healthy and grow like crazy

 

[johnptc]

i do weekly water changes, it seems to do a good job getting rid of the nitrites/ nitrates

your nitrites should measure 0 ppm

 

[ILLdose13]

for better or for worse i live in socal and water is not plentiful.....for a monster tank ( 10K HOUSE OF SAM) with lots of fish that would mean changing 2500+ GALLONS A DAY IS A BETTER CHOICE than a nitrate filter........i think i dont agree with you on this .... if you keep the nitrates down to around 10 ppm and run carbon to remove doc's then the water is pretty darn good and my fish both look healthy and grow like crazy

thanks john..i totally agree ..that is why saltwater tanks use denitrators because changing water all the time is expensive because of the salt. to remover their DOCs they use protein skimmers..

i was thinking about using a SeaClone 150 protein skimmer since it is just sitting in the garage, but there is not enough salinity in freshwater tanks which increases surface tension which is needed to attract the surfactants. so i will be going with carbon

 

[ILLdose13]

as you can all tell.. water changes annoy me! haha. i'm a very lazy person when it comes to cleaning! haha.

 

[Sik.10a]

I do water changes on my 300gl every 4-5 days. I do 40-50% everytime.

With that reducer, Id prob go to 50% once a week. JMO

I dont think we can ever run away from H2o changes

Even those who have 24/7 H2o systems still do water weekly changes

I do the same and jus got a 1000 nitrate reductor yesterday- I agree 100%

Nothin changes for me jus lower nitrates eventually

 

[Sik.10a]

IMO a nitrate reductor is a bad idea.
Nitrates are just one of the pollutants in your tank and its the one that you can buy a test kit for.Remove the nitrates and now you have no way to judge water quality.
Waterchanging is part of fishkeeping.
Companies that try to sell you products that claim to reduce the need to give the fish clean water=snake oil salesmen

Also Depends on wat fish u keep too mate.... It's hard to keep nitrates under 40 if u keep monster fish, even by doin a wc every second day.

Having a wc schedule is alot smarter than waiting for ur water to become filth and say " I think it's time for a water change"

Better to act then react IMO

 

[LD50]

You guys would still do weekly water changes even if you had a nitrate reductor?

In all my tanks I have nitrate reducers, Plants for FW or plenty of Live Rock/Deep sand bed + macros for SW

Nitrates are just the tip of the iceburg in the chemical soup our fish live in. DOCs, hormone production, amino acids, to name just a few of the metabolic processes going on. If water changes were just for nitrates, life would be a lot easier.

+1

i'm already getting a denitrator that removes nitrates.
wut i mean is will plants remove chemicals like DOCs, hormones, amino acids, etc?
will plants absorb the other chemicals faster than it absorb nitrates?

Plants/macro's are amazing filters, and yes they do absorb/metabolize other DOC's like phosphates but they also use other trace elements that other life in your tank needs (thus flourite/soil/aragonite/LR) but not they will not nessicaraly absorb these elements/doc's faster than they would nitrates.

I most likely will be doing water changes twice a month, instead of twice a week. I think this is good enough to take out the other toxins. My nitrate levels were so high (~60ppm) even with so many water changes and limited feedings. My tap water doesn't even have nitrates. So IMO nitrate reductors are a great idea for my aquarium.

It is not a bad thing, but I would suggest adding carbon to your filtration system to further pull out any other junk in the water. I know some people don't like carbon and think it will give your monsters some kind of Uber fish AIDS but it wont.

 

[carsona246]

I would keep plants in there to make sure that when you top off the tank you don't get a buildup of total dissolved solids. Just recently did some research on the necessity of waterchanges in a planted tank(using pothos/peace lilly and only get 5 ppm's of nitrate every 2 weeks), and the only thing I think you really need to worry about is the water hardness/gh dropping from plants using up everything. Any organic matter that is building up in your tank will be broken down into something the plants will utilize, and I haven't found any strong evidence that hormone buildup in a tank actually exists/negatively effects fish. If anything adding activated carbon to your tank will solve any hormonal fears.
I've already made the jump to doing one water change every month, and haven't noticed any negative effects so far

 

[HarleyK]

Howdy,

I am surprised nobody asked (or I missed it): What size is your tank?

I'd say it greatly depends on the size of your set-up.

John impressively shows how water clean-up it can be done right in a massive setting, where water changes would be extensive & expensive. For his level of fishkeeping, that's the best cost/effort to benefit ratio, hands-down.

Any smaller than John's, I agree with other posters: There is more to pollution than nitrates, it just happens that nitrates are a convenient indicator. While removing them eliminates one pollutant, it also eliminates your possibility to effectively monitor water quality. Carbon filtration will remove dissolved organic carbons, but leaves inorganic salts, the final product of biodegradation, unaffected. That leaves you clueless EXCEPT if you have a conductivity meter. That will tell you the increase in ions as a results of pollution. Without all of that, you still should maintain your previous water change schedule. Now add the costs of all of that equipment and compare to your water bill ... makes sense for John - does it make sense for you?

Having said all of that, and having explained how to stuff the loopholes, I still believe that a drip system would be better than a nitrate reductor for anything smaller than 5,000 gals. Even Neo with his 600 gal showtank + other tanks runs a drip system.

Trying to reduce work and service intervals the right way is a noble endeavor. Many routes lead there. Some are just more cumbersome and unnecessarily involved. And there is elegance, simplicity, and worry-free 24/7 dripping that eliminates monitoring altogether.

HarleyK