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Nitrate High

cichlidaddicted

cichlidaddicted

Members
I think he is going to have to solve the issue before it goes into the tank. With such a high starting point I think the plants would only neutralize about as much as the fish produce, and thats if your lucky. There's several things you can do that could take care of a few ppm here and a few there but nothing on such a large scale to drop it to <10 especially if your not treating it separately before its added to the tank. The scary thing to me is that if your nitrates are that high right out of the ground whats in the water that's being converted into those nitrates? Is everything being converted before it reaches your mouth? Did you guys check nitrate? When I see what's trapped in my canisters when my tank water reaches 60ppm its crazy. To think that much waste is in your drinking water is down right scary.

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DougGosnell

Members
Were someone to come up with a simple additive, they would be the richest guy in the world. There are billions and billions being spent on nitrate removal at waste water treatment plants. To be able to take the nitrate laden water from the oxidation pools and simply sprinkle a powder before release into streams/rivers would be a ton easier than adding carbon, measuring DO levels, then releasing when NO3 is <2

If my math is correct, my 2 digesters remove 180 GRAMS of nitrate a day were I to just dump 110 nitrate water at it.

As for the reaction, the best info I was able to glean was that liquid sulphur bonds the nitrate together which fools the test kits but does not do anything else.

Frank Cowherd said:
I reread a lot of literature including the US patent on this and came to the same conclusion as Doug: there is nothing in Amquel that removes nitrate or nitrite. And the chemical literature basically has no mention of any chemical reaction that can remove either from water.
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daninmd

daninmd

Members
hollyfish2000 said:
Just one thought -- you really do have to shake the heck out of the bottles to get an accurate reading. So I'd suggest you shake each bottle for five minutes and then test again. I'd also buy a bottle of RO water and test that as a comparison.

You get can get RO water in big jugs delivered to your house. I can't think of the name of the water company right off the bat. Andrew TFW will remember. It's not that expensive. Maybe $5 for 5 gallons.
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regular bottled water like Dasani, etc is adequate enough to test. even if those had nitrates (they wont) it would be well below the detectable limits of the ATI kits. no need to buy RO water for a simple test.
 
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DougGosnell

Members
I'd rather deal with the nitrates and have a good line of fire for the zombie apocalypse than deal with water bills and the idiocracy of either the DC or Montgomery county governments. I can see the mountain of paperwork needed to open a room or justify the 4000g of water I use a day.

Blah!

Rather build another digester and vent on the DoAgri and "modern living through chemistry" mentality it promotes. On a side note, is it really organic apples when the groundwater used is polluted with fertilizer?

mchambers said:
You need to move your breeding operation into the District. No nitrate problems here.
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Frank Cowherd

Frank Cowherd

Global Moderators
Staff member
I have a well that is 300 ft deep and produces soft neutral water without nitrates. One of my neighbors has a 100 ft well and their water is hard and alkaline. No idea of what the nitrates are.

Maybe a much deeper well in northern Maryland would find better water without nitrates.
 
cichlidaddicted

cichlidaddicted

Members
I think if one were to look hard enough they would find very rarely is something organic. Not even humans are organic....not by a long shot

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daninmd

daninmd

Members
DougGosnell said:
New well will not fix the problem, outlawing the use of fertilizer will, after a couple hundred years.
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that's not entirely true. digging a deeper well can most definitely fix his problem. depending on where he lives there can a number of confining layers and going deeper may get to a different layer with cleaner water. shallow wells are most susceptible to impacts from surface operations like fertilizers. the deeper you go (assuming there is a confining layer) can result in cleaner water.
 
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DougGosnell

Members
May or may not, and depending on layers, it could get worse were it to get to a new deeper pocket. You won't know until it is dug at an expense I am sure his parents do not want to incur. Mine is 300ft, I am into the second pocket of water and at 100+ nitrate. I have to mix my water with distilled to do a test to see how bad it it.

The water in the ground is not stationary, it flows just like a river, although at a much slower pace. This flow usually starts from a pocket and heads to a stream or lake. This allows for the possibility that this can be cleaned up, by treating inactive wells and allowing the flow to assist, it is doubtful since the direct costs of the project and the indirect costs of banning the root cause fertilizer (as it is used now) would make the Love Canal seem like a pittance. It is far cheaper to give everyone a tax credit on a home water treatment product than deal with an issue whose scope is quite possibly the entire country.

daninmd said:
going deeper may get to a different layer with cleaner water.
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jonclark96

jonclark96

Past CCA President
frankoq said:
Anyone using Seachem Matrix?
regular or pond size?
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I use the pond size in my FX5's and Aquaclear HOB filters. Seems to work well for me, and the pond version is much more affordable. It is just larger size than the regular version.
 
frankoq

frankoq

Members
jonclark96 said:
I use the pond size in my FX5's and Aquaclear HOB filters. Seems to work well for me, and the pond version is much more affordable. It is just larger size than the regular version.
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Thanks Jon. How much do you have on your FX5 and what size tank?

I read to use 4L per 100g.
 
jonclark96

jonclark96

Past CCA President
I bought a bucket of the pond matrix (about the same size as the NLS buckets). I used it in my dual FX5's on my 180. One of the filters has 2 of the 3 baskets full of it (the 3rd came with the mechanical cylinder media that Fluval sells). The other filter has all 3 baskets full of pond matrix. I had some left over from the bucket that I put in some of the cheap filter socks and I put those in AC70's and AC110's. In the FX5's, I only use the stock foam around the perimeter of the baskets and no horizontal "polishing" pads. I find that they clog up too quickly for my tastes. In the AC70's, I run either one or two foam blocks with the matrix on top. AC110's get one foam block and the matrix, or 2 foam blocks and no matrix.

I don't have any emperical evidence that it works other than I have a healthy BB colony in all my tanks and my water parameters stay within my acceptable limits based on my water change schedule (which is usually 50% weekly).
 
frankoq

frankoq

Members
I heard it takes a while(months) for the nitrate eating bacteria to develop in the Matrix.
I just ordered 8L of the Pond size Matrix. I'll give it a try. My nitrates are always > 40 and I'm not over stocked in the 180. Thanks for the feedback.
 
cichlidaddicted

cichlidaddicted

Members
Not sure you will ever be able to generate the bacteria needed to reduce nitrate a measurable amount with matrix. I have it in my fx5 and nitrates are always still an issue. Nitrite and ammonia never are but those nitrates are tough (if not impossible) to convert inside a high flow aerobic filter designed to catch waste. Never tested it, you should set up a chart and see what the numbers come out like. Other than plants or specific denitrate equipment I've found nothing worth noting other than purigen and even that has its limitations in reducing nitrate.

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