Thread: Nitrate in tap water

Originally Posted by Dyl l

Does anyone else have really high levels of nitrate in their tap water?(NG postcode if it helps) And if so how would you combat it as my tap levels literally 40ppm and im getting abit worried about what it’ll do to the fish now as I’ve been trying to get it out for a good 2 weeks with no real result, I obviously can’t do a water change as that just tops the nitrate level straight back up, all other parameters are perfectly fine I may get ammonia at 0.2ppm one day a week but id put that down to how I’m feeding I just lay back on the feed the next day and it’s fine, thanks in advance

Hi
There is not much you can do regarding source Nitrate, if its too high you might want to get in touch with your supplier, i cannot remember the levels but there is a limit on what gets in the tap water, how long have you had your pond for? you might get a weed issue possibly but this time of year the severity will diminish with the colder weather round the corner, i would be more worried about high Nitrite readings, what are your pond perameters like? PH,KH,Ammonia, Nitrite, etc ? cheers Steve.

easiest answer is a big veg filter, anoxic baskets, anoxic trickle filter, or reverse osmosis.
my nitrate is not as high as yours but still not good 20-25ppm but i cut my dechlorinated top up water with 75% recycled reverse osmosis water at 0ppm nitrate,
plus as you are recycling water from the pond you use 75% less tap water.

depends how big your pond is too, i know Lau has been using a nitrate removing resin on her top up water,
it's not cheap, though you can regenerate it in salt, but it swaps out chloride ions from the salt for nitrate,
and can lead to an accumulation of chloride ions in the pond that is not good for the fish.

Koi can live relatively happily in high Nitrate (not ammonia and / or Nitrite) but it’s far from ideal. Consider plants to assist with the level reduction and also harvesting from rain where you can add nutrients etc… such as clay and use that as source.

Cheers

Gaz

If possible retain the rain water in a large tank and add nutrients. That was you can’t use some of that along with your tap water to help dilute the Nitrate when too high.

Cheers

Gaz

Originally Posted by Dyl l

Hi gaz I did try plants but didn’t see any real change and I did have quite a few in there for a good month or 2 so just took them out as it was giving them something to make a mess with haha and could you explain that more please the harvesting from rain and the clay as I haven’t got a clue about that, thanks