# Nitrate



## myles (Feb 27, 2005)

Ok i hear alot of conterversy on how much nitrate is too much. I have herd everyhting from you should have none to 20 pp -40ppm and so on. what do you all go by? I kno idealy it should be close to nothing but what do you all go by or recomend? and besides water changes and a nitrate filter do you have any tricks of gettign rid of nitrate? thank you.


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## harrykaa (Jan 10, 2005)

myles said:


> Ok i hear alot of conterversy on how much nitrate is too much. I have herd everyhting from you should have none to 20 pp -40ppm and so on. what do you all go by? I kno idealy it should be close to nothing but what do you all go by or recomend? and besides water changes and a nitrate filter do you have any tricks of gettign rid of nitrate? thank you.


Nitrate filters do not actually work. The best denitrification (NO3 > N2) is achieved only anaerobically, so not in the aqauriums.
You need to do water changes or you need to have a lot of fast growing plants and high lighting, that's it.
Nitrates are never zero if you have even something living in the water. 10-40 ppm is generally something you should aim at.

Harry


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## Coldfire (Aug 20, 2003)

Harry hit all the points. The only thing that I would add is that 60 ppm is about the limit that you should push NO3. Anything higher is definitely harmful to your fish.


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## BlackSunshine (Mar 28, 2006)

I personally would not take it above 40. But I've had it higher. anything higher then 40 is cause for a "drop everything and do a waterchange" action.

My planted tank gets to 0 sometimes when I don't add nitrates.


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## Coldfire (Aug 20, 2003)

BlackSunshine said:


> I personally would not take it above 40. But I've had it higher. *anything higher then 40 is cause for a "drop everything and do a waterchange" action.*
> 
> My planted tank gets to 0 sometimes when I don't add nitrates.


I agree 100%.

I was simply stating the level that NO3 should never get above.


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## myles (Feb 27, 2005)

great thank you for the info! So nitrate filters dont work eh? i kno they need to be in a anerobic inviorment, but what about if you use a very slow flo, and alot of media to push out most of the oxygen? i was thinking of rigging a pvc tube up to a very flow powerhead and to push it through thew tube and use lots of media? there is alo a few producs like de-nitrate seachem makes, you think this may be worth a try? I dont have nitrite problums but i work at the lfs and they have a bit of a nitrate issues despite all the water changes. So i was thinking of rigging one up to my tank at home and see if it reduces it at all to test it out. or do you think we should jsut do even more water changes? and gravel vacs hahaha. thanks


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## monstermatt (Feb 2, 2007)

myles said:


> great thank you for the info! So nitrate filters dont work eh? i kno they need to be in a anerobic inviorment, but what about if you use a very slow flo, and alot of media to push out most of the oxygen? i was thinking of rigging a pvc tube up to a very flow powerhead and to push it through thew tube and use lots of media? there is alo a few producs like de-nitrate seachem makes, you think this may be worth a try? I dont have nitrite problums but i work at the lfs and they have a bit of a nitrate issues despite all the water changes. So i was thinking of rigging one up to my tank at home and see if it reduces it at all to test it out. or do you think we should jsut do even more water changes? and gravel vacs hahaha. thanks


I wish i had an answer dude, b/c i did a 50% wc and that didnt help at all, wtf???
%


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## FohDatAss (Oct 7, 2003)

monstermatt said:


> great thank you for the info! So nitrate filters dont work eh? i kno they need to be in a anerobic inviorment, but what about if you use a very slow flo, and alot of media to push out most of the oxygen? i was thinking of rigging a pvc tube up to a very flow powerhead and to push it through thew tube and use lots of media? there is alo a few producs like de-nitrate seachem makes, you think this may be worth a try? I dont have nitrite problums but i work at the lfs and they have a bit of a nitrate issues despite all the water changes. So i was thinking of rigging one up to my tank at home and see if it reduces it at all to test it out. or do you think we should jsut do even more water changes? and gravel vacs hahaha. thanks


I wish i had an answer dude, b/c i did a 50% wc and that didnt help at all, wtf???
%
[/quote]

that happens to me all the time!


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## myles (Feb 27, 2005)

yeha my guess is it takes a few waterchanges to get it back. one of the systems at work had 40ppm of nitrate, so now were doin about 25% -1/3 waterchange like everday now and after about a week we got it back to around 10, although theres a pretty decent bio load in that system.


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## maddyfish (Sep 16, 2006)

I try to keep mine in my jd tank and in my RD tank under 20, but I don't drop everything until it gets to 40.


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## Coldfire (Aug 20, 2003)

You hit the nail on the head. The large bio-load of fish in the LFS's tank is really whats driving the NO3. The higher the bio-load, the more feeding, by-product, etc., etc. is created in the tank. It goes without saying that if you have an overstocked tank (e.g. LFS) you will have higher NO3. Large and frequient water changes are going to be the best method to combate high NO3 that the LFS.

NO3 removal media works on the bases that they absorb NO3 and then you must remove/replace them from your tank. It is like nutrient extraction from macro-algae in SW.

Of course, if your LFS has the lighting you could always see if they will set up some live plants to help use that excess NO3. I am sure with that large bio-load there is plenty of NH4 as well to fuel the plants' growth.


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## myles (Feb 27, 2005)

thanks for all the feedback. yeah we are trying soem plants in the systems but, they keep getting uprooted when we have to catch fish haha so were experimenting with some options haha. but yeha the frequent waterchanges seem to deffintily help


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