Your Nitrate levels?

[Cross127]

All mine stay 5ppm Never had it go above. My tanks are pretty much perfect.

 

[Kitiara]

what is an RO unit (forgive my ignorance!)

 

[brianjh]

reverse osmosis

 

[duke33]

Well well, I can relax now. Mine peak at 40, the 300 hit 80 once and you talk about a man on a mission! Whew, this is a good thread.

 

[Wolf3101]

I like to see all of our tanks at about 30ppm. I realize this may seem high to you but it's actully a lot healthier for your fish than a lower reading. The reasoning behind this is simple....there are only two ways to keep your nitrate levels below that point for any length of time. A constant drip system with too high a turn over rate....and far too many water changes.

Water changes THAT frequant put you at the tender mercies of the municipal water systems and ...trust me on this one....thats NOT something you want to do.

The time it takes to build your nitrate levels to between 30 and 50 ppm is almost nothing if you have a properly cycled tank and levels this low will NOT adversly effect your fish in any way..... They wont grow slower....get sick more often.....fail to breed....or loose color....so why worry about it?

 

[Liam]

0ppm!!!!!!! wooooooot.

 

[brcacti]

Will someone please tell me which is the most important in order to watch for?, nitrites, nitrates, amonia? I kept fish from many years ago, I think before there were test kits and all this talk about this.

 

[Liam]

Will someone please tell me which is the most important in order to watch for?, nitrites, nitrates, amonia? I kept fish from many years ago, I think before there were test kits and all this talk about this.

ammonia IMO... anything higher than 0ppm is potentially fatal for some fish.

 

[Wolf3101]

Before test kits all we could do was LOTS of water changes. I'd be certian to add in a TDS meter to my test kit. if everything running fine you'll get 0 ppm ammonia.... 0 ppm nitrite.....and between 10 and 200 ppm nitrates. however the TDS (total desolved solids) meter tracks changes in the water chemistry and make up a lot faster and aslo track things a normal test kit wont.

To answer your question.... ALL of the tests are importiant...even if you keep getting 0.... There is simply NO other way to know whats going and head off a potential tank crash.

 

[Cohazard]

Wow this is great to read. Right now my 180 hits 10ppm at the end of the week, and I do 50-70% water changes.

All the polys and cichlids are still small, so I was getting worried about it hitting 50ppm as they grew larger. Guess I don't have to worry about that, since it seems readings that high are not a problem for other members and their fish.

This is a relief.