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Fertiliser may be affecting water analysis.

Hi all,
And yes, 30-40 ppm nitrate for most fish will at least slow their growth and make breathing harder.
I like low NO3 levels in the tanks, but I don't know what they are (accurate testing for <"nitrate is problematic">). I know I don't have many of any ions, so by definition I don't have much NO3-.

The problem is that if you don't add NO3 it is the <"smoking gun" of previous high levels of ammonia (NH3/NH4+) and nitrite NO2-">. If you have a high plant mass it will very efficiently deplete nitrate in the tank water.

cheers Darrel
 
That's not what I said at all. What I actually said was that the total nitrates from all the potential sources could add up enough to cause a problem for the fish. So, if you already have nitrates that are 'off the chart' then adding more via fertilisation was unnecessary and not going to help the issue.
Hi tam,
What I am saying is that:
1. You actually you cannot tell from a nitrate test kit how much NO3 is in the water. There may be up to 50ppm as limited by Euro laws in the tap, or there may be zero. A hobby grade test kit cannot give you reliable information as to what the concentration level is.

2. Even if the tap water is at it's maximum, adding more NO3 will not cause any more toxicity. The level of toxicity NO3 possesses is in the hundreds of ppm and and almost to the thousands of ppm.

Furthermore, if you are lax in your water changes, the toxicity to your plants and animals has nothing to do with NO3 concentration. The toxicity arising from pollution has everything to do with hypoxia as the bacteria will steal oxygen from the water.

The fish, therefore will die outright or will have long term damage from loss of oxygen, Ammonia and Nitrite poisoning long before they will ever encounter any effects of NO3 poisoning. These toxins are thousands of times more fatal to fish that NO3.

What we have been trying to say is that NO3 is natures way of DETOXIFYING the environment, not the other way around. By the time you have accumulated 250ppm of NO3, the damage to the fish has already been done by the concentration levels of the toxins NO3 is meant by nature to neutralize.

When thinking about the health of your tank, NO3 is one of the very last components you should think about because it's presence in the water colum is a smoking gun and it indicates that the toxic bullet has already been fired. The fish have already been harmed and the NO3 is merely a residue of the attack.

NO3, as I am sure you are well aware, is the end product of the nitrification cycle. NH3/NH4 --> NO2 --> NO3.
What is much less well known (or which is never thought about) is that the aerobic bacteria that are in involved in this detoxification cycle use a tremendous amount of Oxygen to achieve this.
That's where the Oxygen goes. The "O2" in NO2 is Oxygen and the "O3" in NO3 is 50% more Oxygen.
This is the same Oxygen that the fish would have been breathing, but no longer have access to because it is tied up in the NO3.

When we add KNO3 to the tank it is already NO3. There is no conversion which steals Oxygen from the water column, so this has no impact on the fish.

The more pollutants that build up in the tank due to lack of water changes the more the bacteria will act on them and the more Oxygen they will steal from the water. As more and more Oxygen is stolen the less healthy the fish become. However, in a planted tank NO3 feeds the plants and so all other things being equal, during the day, if the plants are healthy then they will produce Oxygen and will replenish the Oxygen supply stolen by the bacteria. Unfortunately, they do not produce Oxygen at night and they compete with the fish for Oxygen. The bacteria never stop their activity so that at night fish, plants and bacteria deplete the Oxygen supply.

Water changes, gravel cleaning and filter cleaning removes the pollutants upon which the bacteria act. So this is what people need to worry about. They never need to worry about adding NO3 to the tank. They DO need to worry about hypoxia and the problems that occur as a result of hypoxia.

Hobbyists having overstocked tanks and who experience lax water changes have much more to worry about therefore, than how much NO3 is in the tank.
Nitrate is not toxic, but the consequences of pollution definitely is.

Cheers,
 
Most fertilizers are composed of simple salts like KNO3. This NO3 ion is exactly the same thing that's dangerous to our fish if over 30-40 ppm.
And this data comes from where?
It can only be from someones dream.

Here is a courting pair of Nanochromis in a tank dosed with 100ppm NO3. This is only one example of breeding fish in high NO3 tanks.
If your fish are having breathing problems at 30-40ppm NO3, you had better look elsewhere for the cause because they are certainly suffering either hypercapnia or hypoxia due to poor maintenance.
8394076339_cc451998f6_c.jpg


Cheers,
 
And this data comes from where?
It can only be from someones dream.

Here is a courting pair of Nanochromis in a tank dosed with 100ppm NO3. This is only one example of breeding fish in high NO3 tanks.
If your fish are having breathing problems at 30-40ppm NO3, you had better look elsewhere for the cause because they are certainly suffering either hypercapnia or hypoxia due to poor maintenance.
8394076339_cc451998f6_c.jpg


Cheers,
Well, my fish were never having breathing problems (I never have NO3 levels like that though), but from what I've heard fish like otos or hara jerdoni aren't taking NO3 around this level good. I have to admit it's only what people are saying and not some scientific experiment data. I prefer to be safe and not risk my fish, nothing more.

But that's not the point actually. Let's leave the NO3 alone, ok, you can have 1000 ppm of NO3, whatever (I won't try that though). But OP was saying not only NO3, but ammonia was off charts too, right? The company stated that you can have everything of charts dosing ferts, but that's not true. The ammonia in the fertilizers is as toxic as any other ammonia. So the point is - if the test isn't broken and it shows high ammonia - yes, you need a water change.
 
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Hi all,
When thinking about the health of your tank, NO3 is one of the very last components you should think about because it's presence in the water colum is a smoking gun and it indicates that the toxic bullet has already been fired. The fish have already been harmed and the NO3 is merely a residue of the attack.

NO3, as I am sure you are well aware, is the end product of the nitrification cycle. NH3/NH4 --> NO2 --> NO3.
What is much less well known (or which is never thought about) is that the aerobic bacteria that are in involved in this detoxification cycle use a tremendous amount of Oxygen to achieve this.
That's where the Oxygen goes. The "O2" in NO2 is Oxygen and the "O3" in NO3 is 50% more Oxygen.
This is the same Oxygen that the fish would have been breathing, but no longer have access to because it is tied up in the NO3.

When we add KNO3 to the tank it is already NO3. There is no conversion which steals Oxygen from the water column, so this has no impact on the fish.
That is pretty much where I'm coming from as well.
Today I took it on to do a water analysis using the API Master Test Kit. Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate was off the scale but the fish looked happy enough, very well in fact.
But OP was saying not only NO3, but ammonia was off charts too, right? The company stated that you can have everything of charts dosing ferts, but that's not true. The ammonia in the fertilizers is as toxic as any other ammonia. So the point is - if the test isn't broken and it shows high ammonia - yes, you need a water change
The point for me would be that the OP definitely didn't have off the scale ammonia (NH3), because of the fishes health.

Ammonia (NH3) is highly toxic (at levels well below 1ppm), and although the ammonium ion (NH4+) is less toxic, a change in pH, to pH7 or above, will lead to its conversion to NH3.

I don't think any-one is arguing that it is acceptable to have more than trace levels of ammonia or nitrite, I'm certainly not.

I'm not an advocate of making decisions based on test kit results, because there are circumstances that can lead to the readings being inaccurate. In the case of NH3/NH4+, use of a <"Prime" type water conditioner>" will produce false positive ammonia levels.

Personally I don't like systems with a single point of failure and I use risk management approach to fish keeping. I always have <"plenty of plants">*, a substrate and lots of oxygen, for me they are things that make a real difference, all the other factors are just froth.

From the linked thread
From our work with phytoremediation I knew that plant/microbe systems, with high levels of dissolved oxygen, can deal with huge bioloads, from there it is reasonably small step to realise that the same approach can produce very clean, high quality water if you start with a less polluted effluent (our tank water)
* If you have time I would recommend this thread (and linked threads).

cheers Darrel
 
I'm on board with Clive and Darrel .
It is not the Nitrates from mineral salt's that are harmful, certainly not at suggested ranges for most dosing schemes.
It is rather how the nitrates arrive.
Take away the mineral salt's (KNO3) in fish only tank for example.
If nitrate level's are off the charts,then the nitrates were most certainly preceded by elevated ammonia/nitrites.
Is the oxidation of ammonia/nitrites that harms the fish long before the nitrates .
Is a sign of poor maint,poor water quality IMHO
 
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