Tropical Fish Forum

Tropical Fish Keeping Help and Advice => New Fishkeepers => Topic started by: pollydoodle on April 14, 2019, 03:15:00 PM

Title: Tap water with high-ish nitrate reading
Post by: pollydoodle on April 14, 2019, 03:15:00 PM

Hi all.
my nitrate readings have been 2.5 - 5.0  even after a water change, so I decided to test the tap water and found it was more or less the same.  Nitrite and ammonia readings are good.

I have bought some extra live plants and plan to get some more as soon as I can go to the shop.  Should I be doing anything else?

Title: Re: Tap water with high-ish nitrate reading
Post by: Matt on April 14, 2019, 04:04:24 PM

No, these levels are nothing to worry about.  The permissible level in drinking water is 50ppm. I normally recommend trying to keep them to less than 25ppm, so you don't have anything to worry about here :)

Title: Re: Tap water with high-ish nitrate reading
Post by: Sue on April 14, 2019, 05:15:53 PM

I agree, 5 ppm is fine. Fish only start to suffer at 20 ppm.

Plants only use nitrate (and nitrite) as a last resort. They prefer ammonia. The reason is simply that nitrite & nitrate have to be converted into ammonia inside the plant, so using ammonia directly takes them less energy.