Will using prime to lower nitrates and nitrites be sufficient enough?

[squint]

Good to know my ammonia is practically at zero it's measures slightly green tint almost unable to see unless you really look for awhile

I'd be more concerned about a slight green tint in the ammonia test than the darkest red in the nitrate test.

Ideally, it should be undetectable. This is distilled water (L) and tank water with 0.05 mg/L ammonia (R). I can't tell the difference. One of these days I'll dilute some ammonia standard solution and try to find the minimum detection level of the API ammonia test. It's kind of troubling that toxic nitrate levels are off the scale and toxic ammonia levels may be below the minimum detection level of the API test kit.

 

[Steve_C]

I'd be more concerned about a slight green tint in the ammonia test than the darkest red in the nitrate test.

I'm gonna bet it's probably coming out of his tap like that. If his local water dept treats his city water with chloramine then that will show up as trace amounts of ammonia. My city water comes out of the tap at .25 ammonia reading with an api test kit as well.

 

[squint]

I'm gonna bet it's probably coming out of his tap like that. If his local water dept treats his city water with chloramine then that will show up as trace amounts of ammonia. My city water comes out of the tap at .25 ammonia reading with an api test kit as well.

Tap water ammonia should be processed within a few hours though...

 

[Steve_C]

I still get .25 reading in my tanks though even days later so I dunno. And my tanks are well established & overfiltered. Maybe a false reading because of prime?

 

[squint]

I still get .25 reading in my tanks though even days later so I dunno. And my tanks are well established & overfiltered. Maybe a false reading because of prime?

Ammonia/ammonium bound to the ammonia-binder in Prime is supposed to still be edible to the bacteria. I have tested ammonia at something like 0.17 after a water change and then 0.05 or lower in later tests when using Prime.

 

[Supergeorge123]

It wouldn't read nitrates if it wasn't.


I'd try another liquid test brand before going strips, I tested against my liquid tests and it's vastly different.

Tetra test strips are very accurate from what i have seen. Usually the api ones are the ones that are really inaccurate. Honestly i think that may deliberate from api. Every chain store i have walked into has only had api water testing supplies. If they have contracts with the big chains to be the only water testing kit in the store then they can make a crap 5 dollar strip kit that is usually way off the mark and force people to buy their 30+ dollar liquid master kit instead.

 

[pacu mom]

Do you have a nitrite reading? If you do, then your tank is not cycled or is in a mini cycle. If there are no nitrites present, then the high nitrates are due to not changing out enough water frequently enough. Test your tap water to rule out ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. It is possible to get an ammonia spike in a cycled tank by overfeeding. One time I fed my pacu unlimited watermelon (all they could eat) and had an ammonia reading.

Not changing out enough water will result in nitrate creep, and before too long, the nitrates are off the charts. I had not tested my water in years (because I knew how fast the nitrates climbed) About two months ago I tested the water and was horrified to find the nitrates in the red zone. The fish were considerably larger and still stuck in the small 300 gallon tank, and someone else was doing the water changes and only changing out about 1/3 of the tank once a week. Daily water changes have got the nitrates under control again. Yesterday the nitrates were 8.6. After two changes:

I will say that as a newbie fish keeper, once I understood the nitrogen cycle, I had to do daily water changes on the overcrowded, uncycled, 55 gallon tank...ten gallons at a time...until I changed out 60 gallons (six changes every day) The pacu gasped until all nitrite was removed...as ignorant newbies, we scrubbed the substrate and filters in hot chlorinated water and killed whatever beneficial bacteria the tank had, so had a completely uncycled tank full of big fish....

You can't change out much water when there are eight large fish in the small tank:

 

[Coryloach]

High nitrates doesn't mean ammonia and nitrite are also high. There is somewhat of a correlation between ammonia and nitrite though.

On the contrary, high nitrates are the smoking gun of large amount of ammonia->nitrites being processed. We maybe measuring zero ammonia and nitrites in a cycled tank, but that's because the filters are coping with the conversion. The impact of high bioload is low dissolved oxygen because NH3(ammonia) is being converted to NO3(nitrate). Notice that it takes 3 times the oxygen amount to convert one time ammonia....Oxygen is the only parameter which doesn't need to be fully depleted to cause fish deaths....Low oxygen levels will eventually criple nitrification also but not before it kills the fish first.

 

[squint]

On the contrary, high nitrates are the smoking gun of large amount of ammonia->nitrites being processed. We maybe measuring zero ammonia and nitrites in a cycled tank, but that's because the filters are coping with the conversion. The impact of high bioload is low dissolved oxygen because NH3(ammonia) is being converted to NO3(nitrate). Notice that it takes 3 times the oxygen amount to convert one time ammonia....Oxygen is the only parameter which doesn't need to be fully depleted to cause fish deaths....Low oxygen levels will eventually criple nitrification also but not before it kills the fish first.

Are you saying you'd prefer ammonia to nitrate? Nitratation uses more oxygen but dissolved oxygen is the one parameter that's constantly being replenished. Ammonia and nitrite accumulation is much more deadly than oxygen depletion.

The only way to get high ammonia, nitrite, and nitrates would be to have a bio filter that's been working for sometime, insufficient water changes, and then a sudden bio filter malfunction.

 

[Coryloach]

Are you saying you'd prefer ammonia to nitrate? Nitratation uses more oxygen but dissolved oxygen is the one parameter that's constantly being replenished

Nitrate doesn't use any oxygen. Ammonia and nitrite use oxygen to produce nitrate. Ammonia is obviously toxic to fish and high nitrate levels indicate that high ammonia levels have passed through the "system". Whether there have been lingering ammonia, high enough to affect fish, depends on many factors, maintenance level, oxygen level, biological filtration level, stocking level, feeding level, tank size, pH etc...Ammonia doesn't need to spike high or to spike for days to affect fish. One spike a day or two or once a week is enough to affect fish. Unless one is stuck testing the tank 24/7, one is unlikely to catch the spike via testing in a cycled tank. But the fish health will tell in time.

One thing many forget is that there's ammonia in a tank 24/7 and all those factors determine if any of it spikes high enough and often enough to chronically affect fish. So yes, ammonia and nitrite are the problem but nitrate is the smoking gun telling the fish keeper that the bio-load is too high. Yet, people start figuring ways to lower nitrate instead of lowering ammonia production....

Oxygen has very poor solubility in water and is the biggest limiting factor in nitrification and aerobic decomposition. It is not as easily replenished as people may think, especially in a tank with low surface movement, low flow, no plants and high bioload.