Author Topic: Is my water ok? (Read 18570 times) 57 replies

Sue · « **Reply #40 on:** December 04, 2016, 02:37:37 PM »

We do have problems in the UK with the amount of nitrate in tap water in some regions. Legislation allows up to 50 ppm; a lot of fish experts are now saying anything above 20 ppm is bad for fish in the long term $:-\$

However, the tap + 20 is a useful guide for those who have either fake plants or only a few real ones. It doesn't apply where tanks are planted like a jungle.
Nitrate is the end point of the nitrogen cycle. It always increases in tank water. The aim is to stop it increasing by more than 20 ppm between water changes. To check this, you need to know your tap nitrate and subtract that from the tank nitrate.
In your case, your tap nitrate is 40 ppm so you should aim to keep your tank nitrate below 60 ppm. As nitrate is constantly being made, this is the maximum level just before a water change. Of course, if you can keep it lower than 60 ppm, that's a good thing.

There are a few reasons why nitrate might go above tap + 20, and the cause does need attention.
Too many fish in the tank, or more accurately, too large a bioload. Having 5 fish in a 60 litre tank doesn't mean much; having 5 x 6 inch fish in that 60 litre tank is very over stocked, whereas 5 x 1 inch fish is understocked.
Feeding too much. Fish that overeat make more ammonia. Uneaten fish food decomposes to make more ammonia. The filter bacteria 'eat' all this ammonia and turn it into nitrate.
Water changes not often enough or not big enough. If the nitrate being made by the filter bacteria is not removed it just adds up.
Dead fish and/or plants will decay to make ammonia, which ends up as nitrate. They should be removed as soon as possible.

Nitrate is an indicator of general tank health. There are so many things we can't measure, and they will also build up in a tank to the detriment of the occupants. If nitrate is high, these other things will also be high.

High tap nitrate is a problem. There are a couple of things one can do. For example, read up on any fish before buying and that should flag up if it is a nitrate intolerant species. Other people put their water change water into a container and run nitrate absorbing media in there before putting the water into the tank.
And of course plants will absorb nitrate - and more likely the ammonia made by the fish before the filter bacteria have chance to turn it into nitrate.
Plants also help with the general health of the tank. I live in Teesside where we have a concentration of chemical plants. Work was done here years ago on the ability of plants to remove chemical pollutants before waste water reaches the water course. ICI started the use of reed beds in this area many years ago. OK so we don't have reed beds in our tanks, but we don't have much in the way of chemical pollution either. That was just an example of the things plants can absorb

Andy The Minion · « **Reply #41 on:** December 04, 2016, 03:07:48 PM »

@adenann In Sue's post she refers to Tap water plus 20ppm, (definitely nothing with a 200 in it!) sorry I didn't restate it.
For me this is also 20ppm because I have almost undetectable levels even using a Colourimeter. I aim for a water change that gives a post change level of 17-18ppm, the tanks nett production is between 5 and 7 ppm over the week. This I accept is quite an aggressive target with larger tanks as the lower the 'above tap' level the larger the change has to be, and of course it gets to a point where its practically impossible to reduce further.
We have a good water source and so I can run like this fairly easily and I do it for water clarity and algae prevention although this is a balance of other factors as well. If I didn't have clean tap water I don't think I would go to these levels, moving the target to say 30ppm (above tap) has quite a dramatic effect on change volumes

and I don't think anybody here would shout you down if were to report a 60ppm level. If you were over 100-150ppm then perhaps expect a reaction, but other people report happy fish at these levels as well.... so who knows. I think consistency has a lot to do with it.

If however you keep very sensitive species like wild Discus and you have higher levels in tap then reverse osmosis and deionised water are the only practical option but I feel most species are more tolerant or are farmed and should be fine at higher levels.
I cant say what the 'correct' levels are and there a certainly opinions that differ massively from my way of running tanks but I am comfortable with the effort, the fish are healthy and the tanks look clean so I wont break a working system.
You will find your own balance and what works for your tank I'm sure. Good luck

adenann · « **Reply #42 on:** December 04, 2016, 04:01:40 PM »

@Andy the minion
Thanks. I've seen elsewhere that consistency is as, if not more, important than actual level for Nitrate and, come to think of it, pH too. One of my LFS said a while ago that they didn't routinely check NO3.
Also, I'm not confident that the Tetra 6-in-1 strips are accurate. I use liquid reagents for NO2 & NH3 and seem to get results more in sync with what MA come up with. For NO3, MA consistently come in at about half what I get.

adenann · « **Reply #43 on:** December 04, 2016, 09:22:17 PM »

After the discussion we had about Nitrate levels, I checked my parameters and found the Tetra 6-in-1 strip reading 100ppm for NO₃. I did a 20% water change, waited 3 hours and did another test. ALL the parameters were exactly the same as before.

What's (not) going on?

Mathematically I start with 80L containing 100ppm NO₃
Take out 20% leaves me with 64L containing 100ppm.
Add back in16L containing 40ppm from the tap.
My calculation of what the level should be is therefore :- ((64L*100ppm)+(16L*40ppm))/80L = 88ppm

The 3hr-later test is still showing 100ppm

If my maths are correct, the only things I can think of are that the strips are useless and/or they aren't good enough to register the difference between 100ppm and 88ppm. Anything between 50ppm and 100ppm is a bit of guesswork as there's no colour on the chart for anything in between. The after reading was very definitely 100ppm though. These tests were done on a new batch of strips, so I'm beginning to doubt consistency between batches!

Previously, when I've done before and after water change checks with the after done immediately after the change, the NO₃ goes down by 50% from 100ppm to 50ppm which is a result viewed against Tap level of 40ppm + 20ppm = 60ppm Target.

I'll try another 20% tomorrow and see if that helps.

Matt · « **Reply #44 on:** December 04, 2016, 09:37:57 PM »

Do the strips read higher than 100? If not, it could have been that they were showing their maximum whereas the levels were actually much higher...

Andy The Minion · « **Reply #45 on:** December 04, 2016, 10:28:35 PM »

@adenann Your maths is correct and you cant argue with maths. I do argue with test strips and would recommend a wet test when you run out, but stay with it for now you are on the correct track even if you have doubts. I would suggest keeping going with a daily change maybe even push to a 30%.
In the meantime I think Matt is correct and you are over the top so try an experiment, take a 5ml sample, and then accurately double it with distilled water and see what the test strip shows then. if this still showing 100 double it again. If this confirms Matt thoughts then pause before rushing to a total water change as this will shock the poor little blighters and may finish them off. Stay with the progressive water changes until things stabilise and the fish manage to acclimatise to the new environment.
While this is happening have a look at what might have caused the high levels. Too much food (just enough food for 3 min of feeding is enough). Too many fish, check the community builder to confirm. Too little/too few change before now. Accumulation of poo in the substrate. You will probably find that @Sue has gone into this in more and better detail in previous posts so have a browse through her listings.

fcmf · « **Reply #46 on:** December 04, 2016, 10:49:19 PM »

My experience with the test strips (Tetra or JBL) is that they give me very consistent readings on all the tests. I also use liquid-based test kits but find the nitrate and nitrite difficult to read, so like to cross-check with the test strips. I trust the nitrite, nitrate and chlorine readings but find the KH and GH to give me a higher reading and the PH a lower reading than my water utility company and the liquid based tests suggest. I find the liquid based tests, irrespective of brand, to give me a higher reading for PH that I would expect based on water utility company readings.

adenann · « **Reply #47 on:** December 05, 2016, 12:01:07 AM »

@Andytheminion Thanks, several points to consider.

The Tetra strip's colour chart for NO₃ has readings for 0, 10, 25 50, 100 & 250mg/L. I'm fairly sure ppm and mg/L are interchangeable. Additionally, 0 through 25 are marked as "Safe" and 100 to 250 as "Water Change". The assumption I draw from this is that 50 is neither safe nor requiring water change, which kind of chimes with @Sue recommending Tap plus 20ppm which would give me an optimum value of 60ppm.

I can accept that I may have been overfeeding. With the addition of our final 4 Corydoras, I've been experimenting with NovoTabs, as you know from another thread. The water I removed today had plenty of poo in it and I notice now that the whole tank has a slightly brown tinge to it. With the large size "hoover" I've got, it takes a 20% change to give me the time to go over all the substrate twice.

I don't have any distilled water to hand, but I understand the mathematics of diluting samples to bring them in range of the reagents. For now, I have dosed the whole tank with SeaChem Prime in addition to using it for the latest 20% refill for Chlorine/Chloramine as it's supposed to also "detoxify Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate, allowing the biofilter to more efficiently remove them". Bit of an odd statement in SeaChem's sales blurb as, as far as I'm aware, the biofilter only deals with Ammonia and Nitrite which is why we need water changes and/or plants to handle the Nitrate.

We're now at our desired stock level and the Community Creator is telling me we're at 79%.

As recommended I'll do daily changes until I get a handle on this, as well as reducing the feeding.

@fcfm My experience to-date has been similar in that I use Tetra strips and MA, where I get our stock from, are fairly consistent using their JBL strips. Up until now I've trusted the Tetra strips after confirmation of liquid-based tests at MA. It's just this blip of why, having done a water change, the high level of NO₃ didn't reduce after the water change that bothers me.

The guesswork involved in reading the strip colour against the scale is a major problem. On 26th Nov, after a 20% change, my NO₃ went from 75 to 35. Both these values obviously guesses as the colour lay between 50 - 100 and 25 - 50 respectively. Similarly, before and after on 2nd Dec (when the Cories were introduced) went from 100 to 50, no guesswork needed as the colours matched up OK.

My best guess at the whole problem is that I've been overfeeding, possibly from sometime after 17th Nov when we introduced 8 Guppies and also experimented with NovoTabs. All causing the NO₃ to spike and the granularity of the test readings is not fine enough so what could have been 100-ish+ before could easily be 95+ now. What liquid-based kit(s) would you recommend to cross-check against the Tetra strips?

Andy The Minion · « **Reply #48 on:** December 05, 2016, 06:04:36 AM »

I use API test and I think a lot of the others do as well. There is still the accuracy of the colour card problem, have a look back on a reply I gave a couple of months ago (post 67 21st Oct) I suggest a way of improving the reading and testing process. The API test chemisty is however incredibily repeatable. I just started new test bottles last week and repeated the test with each and was within 3ppm

Sue · « **Reply #49 on:** December 05, 2016, 09:01:07 AM »

Nitrate is the trickiest of the things we test for. Liquid reagents have the problem with one chemical dropping out of solution and all the colour charts are hard to read above ~20 ppm.
I have read that Salifert is the best for nitrate but it is quite pricey. And I can't find out for certain if it can be used in fresh water. Some say yes, other's say the colour chart won't apply

Adenann, I think what I would do is lots of small water changes and clean some gravel at each one. You can carry on from where you leave off at the next one. Small changes won't harm the fish if nitrate really is high, it will dilute nitrate and everything else a bit at a time and it will clean the gravel thoroughly over a week or two. Somewhere in the region of 10% a day for a week. If that shows signs of nitrate dropping, you could then increase the amount a bit.

Seachem admit even they don't know how Prime detoxifies nitrite and nitrate. They only found out it does when their customers gave feedback to that effect. The phrase they use is 'render non toxic', they don't claim that Prime removes nitrate.

Quote

Prime® also contains a binder which renders ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate non-toxic

Quote

Q: How does Prime make a difference in reducing nitrates?

A: The detoxification of nitrite and nitrate by Prime (when used at elevated levels) is not well understood from a mechanistic standpoint. The most likely explanation is that the nitrite and nitrate is removed in a manner similar to the way ammonia is removed; i.e. it is bound and held in a inert state until such time that bacteria in the biological filter are able to take a hold of it, break it apart and use it. Two other possible scenarios are reduction to nitrogen (N2) gas or conversion into a benign organic nitrogen compound.

I wish we had some more "concrete" explanation, but the end result is the same, it does actually detoxify nitrite and nitrate. This was unexpected chemically and thus initially we were not even aware of this, however we received numerous reports from customers stating that when they overdosed with Prime they were able to reduce or eliminate the high death rates they experienced when their nitrite and nitrate levels were high. We have received enough reports to date to ensure that this is no fluke and is in fact a verifiable function of the product.

tff_pb · « **Reply #50 on:** December 05, 2016, 12:48:39 PM »

Quote from: Sue on December 03, 2016, 09:58:56 AM

First of all, for a well stocked tank and no live plants, I would change at least 30% a week. With live plants it can be less because the plants will use some nitrate as fertiliser. But a lot of nitrate is not good for fish, and in the absence of live plants, water changes are the best way to remove the nitrate made by the nitrogen cycle.
As a rough guide, you should keep your nitrate level less than the amount in your tap water plus 20. It will be highest just before a water change, so this is the time to check your reading.

I have never used nitrate removing media so I'm afraid I can't help with that. I am lucky that my tap water has under 5 ppm nitrate so it is easy for me to keep my nitrate low.

When I had gravel, at every water change I used the gravel siphon to suck the debris out of the gravel. I moved decor to one side to 'hoover' under it. With no plants growing in the substrate, the muck (fish poo, uneaten food) will just sit there unless you suck it out.

I never bleach any decor. The simplest way to remove algae is to buy a cheap toothbrush and just scrub the rock or whatever in old tank water.
However, you can try to stop the algae growing in the first place. Keeping your nitrate level low will help, as will not having the lights on very long. How long are they on for at the moment?
Another way to help with algae is by having live plants. You don't need to get a jungle, but some floating plants would help enormously. These float - obviously - and are near the lights so they don't need anything fancy. They are on the surface so they can absorb carbon dioxide from the air so you don't need to add that. And fish like to have a shaded area in the tank. Look at Salvinia for small plants or water lettuce and Amazon frogbit for larger plants. Even duckweed would help.

As for checking levels in the tank, maybe check ammonia and nitrite after each water change for a few weeks to be sure they stay at zero, then test whenever you feel like it.
I would test nitrate before and half an hour after each water change for a while. And test your tap water so you know what the nitrate in the new water is.
The amount in the tap water will give you a base line to work from. If the tank nitrate just before a water change is more than 20 higher than the tap reading, you need to do a big (and I mean big) water change. If the after water change nitrate is still 10 or more above tap water level, you need to do another water change because in a week it will get higher still, probably back over tap + 20.

Hi Sue,
Thank you so much for your advice.

adenann · « **Reply #51 on:** December 07, 2016, 02:34:47 PM »

@Sue @andytheminion

3 x 20% water changes since my last post with absolutely no change in the parameters!

Today I took samples of the tank water after yesterday's change and tap water off the main today to MA.

Their JBL liquid based tests showed Nitrate at only 20 from the tap and less than 40 from the tank, so I'm a reasonably happy bunny in that respect, for now.

They also checked both samples with JBL test strips and came out with readings in excess of 100. When I got home, I checked what was left of the tap sample with a Tetra strip. It too gave a reading of 100. So no wonder I've been going round in circles trying to get the Nitrate level down. The manager at MA commented that there is usually a discrepancy between their JBL liquid and JBL strip tests but not that much and couldn't throw any light on how that large a discrepancy has occurred. Bear in mind this is water off the tap with nothing added, supposedly.

There's obviously something in the straight-off-the-tap water that's throwing the Tetra and JBL strips into confusion as 100 ppm in tap water is illegal and I don't think Cambridge Water would be allowing that, but I'll check that with them.

It could be that the strips are correct and the liquid test is wrong. Which is why I'm not completely happy as I need to get to the bottom of what's going on so as to be able to manage the parameters correctly.

I haven't bought a liquid based Nitrate test yet, as the only ones I've seen so far are still to wide ranging at the 40 ppm point, i.e. they go something like 20, 40 then 100 and 250, so anything over 40 and less that 250 is just guesswork again.

For now though, as none of the fish are exhibiting Nitrate poisoning, I'm going back to 20% weekly changes to get the detritus out of the tank on a regular basis whist I try and find a proper solution.

Sue · « **Reply #52 on:** December 07, 2016, 03:49:14 PM »

I have just looked at Cambridge Water's website but they don't give a water quality report for a given postcode unlike Northumbrian Water (my company). All they do is give a link to the DWI annual summaries which don't give any numbers.

You could try contacting them to ask what your tap nitrate is. Then at least you'll know for sure which set of test results are the right ones.

I did find something.
This admits that Cambridge Water nitrate levels have increased over the years but are mostly currently still under the 50 ppm legal upper limit. Though they do confess that they are likely to break this limit during the next 5 years.

Quote

However, detailed analysis of data taken from routine samples has given us a clear indication that chemical quality and an ability to comply with the water quality nitrate standard is likely to fail during the next five years, as nitrate levels continue to increase.

Some nitrate tests have been over the limit and until now they have responded by adding water low in nitrate to dilute it. But they say this can't continue doing this.
The problem is that this report is out of date - it refers to their plan to build a third nitrate reducing plant before 2015, and we are now almost at the end of 2016.

Maybe they are afraid of the public finding out just how much nitrate is in their drinking water $:-\$

Littlefish · « **Reply #53 on:** December 07, 2016, 04:09:07 PM »

I have always found nitrate levels of 40ppm in my tap water when using the API Freshwater Master Test kit.
I know that this is quite an unreliable test due to the reagent that comes out of solution and having to shake the reagents/test until your arm drops off, but I've always got the same result.

adenann · « **Reply #54 on:** December 07, 2016, 06:49:27 PM »

@Sue Thanks for the info on Cambridge Water. I'm outstanding a reply to an email I sent over a week ago asking for all the most relevant fish related parameters in our tap water. Their own code of conduct says they should have replied by now. If I get a chance tomorrow, I'll give them a g-up on a response.

@Littlefish You're in the Cambridge water area so it looks like they are, for now maintaining the below 50ppm requirement for drinking water.

Concerning the API test kit you use, I see on the Net that in the Master Kit are 2 tests for pH, one low range (6.0-7.6) and one high range (7.4-8.

. I think my pH is consistently coming out 7.6. This seems to be on the boundary between low and high. Do you use both for your testing? Or just the high range?

The Master Kit seems to be good value against the sum of individual API tests but, as I've still got plenty of NT Labs NO2 and NutraFin NH3 I might just go for a stand alone NO3 API kit and rely on the Tetra strips for pH, GH, KH and CL2. Does that make sense?

MA's JBL Nitrate test doesn't seem to require much shaking, but there is quite a lot of precipitation that can obscure the colour checking.

Does anyone else have recommendations for their favoured test reagents?

Littlefish · « **Reply #55 on:** December 07, 2016, 08:07:49 PM »

@adenann when I first started I used both pH tests due to the boarderline results. After a while I changed to just using the high test. My water seems to come out of the tap at 7.4 (ish) but after 48 hours reads around 8.2-8.4.
Everyone here seems to be dealing with that, but I'm also aware that if I ever have to do a very large emergency water change I would have to keep this change in pH in mind.

tff_pb · « **Reply #56 on:** June 07, 2017, 02:47:16 PM »

Quote from: Sue on December 03, 2016, 09:58:56 AM

First of all, for a well stocked tank and no live plants, I would change at least 30% a week. With live plants it can be less because the plants will use some nitrate as fertiliser. But a lot of nitrate is not good for fish, and in the absence of live plants, water changes are the best way to remove the nitrate made by the nitrogen cycle.
As a rough guide, you should keep your nitrate level less than the amount in your tap water plus 20. It will be highest just before a water change, so this is the time to check your reading.

I have never used nitrate removing media so I'm afraid I can't help with that. I am lucky that my tap water has under 5 ppm nitrate so it is easy for me to keep my nitrate low.

When I had gravel, at every water change I used the gravel siphon to suck the debris out of the gravel. I moved decor to one side to 'hoover' under it. With no plants growing in the substrate, the muck (fish poo, uneaten food) will just sit there unless you suck it out.

I never bleach any decor. The simplest way to remove algae is to buy a cheap toothbrush and just scrub the rock or whatever in old tank water.
However, you can try to stop the algae growing in the first place. Keeping your nitrate level low will help, as will not having the lights on very long. How long are they on for at the moment?
Another way to help with algae is by having live plants. You don't need to get a jungle, but some floating plants would help enormously. These float - obviously - and are near the lights so they don't need anything fancy. They are on the surface so they can absorb carbon dioxide from the air so you don't need to add that. And fish like to have a shaded area in the tank. Look at Salvinia for small plants or water lettuce and Amazon frogbit for larger plants. Even duckweed would help.

As for checking levels in the tank, maybe check ammonia and nitrite after each water change for a few weeks to be sure they stay at zero, then test whenever you feel like it.
I would test nitrate before and half an hour after each water change for a while. And test your tap water so you know what the nitrate in the new water is.
The amount in the tap water will give you a base line to work from. If the tank nitrate just before a water change is more than 20 higher than the tap reading, you need to do a big (and I mean big) water change. If the after water change nitrate is still 10 or more above tap water level, you need to do another water change because in a week it will get higher still, probably back over tap + 20.

Hi Sue,

It's 6 months since I started re-stocking my tank, after I successfully followed your advice. I've gradually adopted the following 4-week cycle that seems to have worked:
Week 1: Deep clean - dredge, clean plants and filters. Change approx. 40% water.
Week 2: Change approx. 30% water.
Week 3: Dredge approx. 30% water.
Week 4: Change approx. 30% water.
Latest test strip readings are: NH3 = 0, NO2 = 0, NO3 = 25 taken 1 day after a 33% water change.

Thanks again for your advice.

Sue · « **Reply #57 on:** June 07, 2017, 04:18:07 PM »

Glad to hear your tank is running nicely now

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Is My Water Ok?

Is My Water Ok?

Author Topic: Is my water ok? (Read 18570 times) 57 replies

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