Us stingray keepers always need to keep an eye on Nitrates as our Rays are ammonia machines, my set up is on auto drip overflow to waste 30gallons per day and pothos growing outside the tank with roots in water.
My tap water used to be over 50ppm and higher but dropped to below 10ppm on a low range test kit.
I tend to do ad-hoc 10% to 40% water changes when I clean the glass so either weekly or less.
Until recently I have not bothered to test nitrate as always assumed it was very low.
I have 360 gallon tank with a 22 inch female marble and a 2ft fire eel.
Recently tested the tap water and it has risen to 25ppm and tested my tank at just over 50ppm nothing bad but I want to run as low as possible and it also interests me.
I have run vodka fed denitrators in the past but found them fiddly.
I also used ion exchange resins with great effect.
Recently I saw a post about Szat Clearwater resin and thought I would order some from IP discus in Scotland who is U.K. Supplier of Tony Dan discus.
It is a resin in a bag and I have put two of the largest bags in the sump. It has gone in at 50ppm nitrate and I will test in 1 week to see without changing anything else.
You can recharge it in salt water 300 times. I paid about £80 for two of the 600l tank ones.
I do not have any affiliation to them and I will be honest with the results, I hope it works well but do not have anything to prove if it does or does not.
THE BIG MESSAGE IS, I don't care if you think you have the best setup in the world, test your tap water and your tank for nitrate using a good test kit, not a dip strip. I am also not going to argue if Nitrate is bad for Rays or not, I believe it is bad for all fish. Those with high nitrates often argue it isn't bad and those with low say it is, read what you want in to that, I am not going to try and convince anyone what to believe.
My tap water used to be over 50ppm and higher but dropped to below 10ppm on a low range test kit.
I tend to do ad-hoc 10% to 40% water changes when I clean the glass so either weekly or less.
Until recently I have not bothered to test nitrate as always assumed it was very low.
I have 360 gallon tank with a 22 inch female marble and a 2ft fire eel.
Recently tested the tap water and it has risen to 25ppm and tested my tank at just over 50ppm nothing bad but I want to run as low as possible and it also interests me.
I have run vodka fed denitrators in the past but found them fiddly.
I also used ion exchange resins with great effect.
Recently I saw a post about Szat Clearwater resin and thought I would order some from IP discus in Scotland who is U.K. Supplier of Tony Dan discus.
It is a resin in a bag and I have put two of the largest bags in the sump. It has gone in at 50ppm nitrate and I will test in 1 week to see without changing anything else.
You can recharge it in salt water 300 times. I paid about £80 for two of the 600l tank ones.
I do not have any affiliation to them and I will be honest with the results, I hope it works well but do not have anything to prove if it does or does not.
THE BIG MESSAGE IS, I don't care if you think you have the best setup in the world, test your tap water and your tank for nitrate using a good test kit, not a dip strip. I am also not going to argue if Nitrate is bad for Rays or not, I believe it is bad for all fish. Those with high nitrates often argue it isn't bad and those with low say it is, read what you want in to that, I am not going to try and convince anyone what to believe.
