Just Bought A 250l Barrel For Aging Tap Water Options

[goldberg]

Hi everyone,

Decided to age my tap water, just bought a big size barrel ( abt 250 litres )..should I add activated carbon in it to remove chemicals/odours?

Appreciate your kind answers.

[Jos Nana]

Yes, I have done extensive readings/measurements on this matter. I am afraid I am not able to reproduce it cos it was done about 7 years ago.

In order to achieve a relative meaningful measure of nitrate changes over a period of time, all other variables such as ph, kh, lighting intensity (daily reduction) , BB maturity & activity (everchanging), fish load & health (everchanging) incoming water etc etc.... have to be keep constant. It was not really possible. What I have gathered from the experiment is that 50 % water replacement will give you a reduction of approx 47 % nitrate. Our incoming water have a minute amount of nitrate, that accounts for the slight inequation.

For the purpose of this hypothentical illustration, let take away the issue of nitrate in our incoming water, thus 50% water replacement will result in 50% reduction in nitrate

Now assuming there are 10 units measure of nitrate (10x) in a tank, a daily water change of 10% will reduce nitrate to (9x). On the assumption that your BB colonies will produce 1x converted nitrate per day, the next day tank nitrate measure will still be 10x. i. e your fish is constantly living in 9x -> 10x nitrate presence.

Let's now have a 90% water replacement, nitrate will be reduced to 1x, it will take 9 days to rasie nitrate values to 10x at the same rate of BB activity. During this time, your fish is living in 2x nitrate in day 2, 5x nitrate in day 5 so on and so fore. Now this is the difference.

The above illustration does takes in certain assumption, off course it has more other issues to it. However, I hope it provide a logical explanation.