Nitrates, the silent killer Options

[goldrush]

Dear all

Just like hypertension in human, nitrates in goldfish setup is a natural silent killer.It is the end product of any nitrification cycle and an underestimated killer.Most literatures disregard its harmfulness and deem it as well tolerable.

WRONG!!!!!!


If a setup has been for awhile(matured) and your fish are falling sick with red veins, lethargy and flip over you can bet NITRATES is the cause.




Let me show you a video of how a tank of goldies thrive in a tank with nitrates in excess of 100ppm.This tank sits in my waiting room with a biweekly change of 30% water.and fed twice daily.Some of you are familiar with my acquisitions and you can see how they have deteriorated or degenerated over time.






Don’t regard me as Dr Frankenstein nor associate me with animal abuse(fish abuse for that matter)……..I’m just making my point with concrete evidence of the danger of high nitrate level.





goldrush

[Luvinmygoldies]

Point taken. Okay, so you've made your point and now the fish are in better water conditions? That's the only way that this would not be considered abuse. If you've discontinued such treatment.

[kelvintam]

I went through a Koi forum as I intend to build a pond. I happened to come across this thread. I think it may be an interesting read. I understand the need of regular water changing to eliminate growth inhibitor hormones. But but for matured jumbo fishes wouldn't it be great If we need not change water every 5 days but still able to maintain great water quality. Maybe some improvisation for these for the goldies.

Check out this thread.

http://www.koi.com.my/forum/KOI_Talk_C1/Po...his!_P3071/

[grantaustralia]

I went through a Koi forum as I intend to build a pond. I happened to come across this thread. I think it may be an interesting read. I understand the need of regular water changing to eliminate growth inhibitor hormones. But but for matured jumbo fishes wouldn't it be great If we need not change water every 5 days but still able to maintain great water quality. Maybe some improvisation for these for the goldies.

Check out this thread.

http://www.koi.com.my/forum/KOI_Talk_C1/Po...his!_P3071/

I have successfully kept marine fish for 6 years and started with a wet dry for that system but as the prevailing wisdom was that wet/dry systems were nitrate factories removed the wet dry in favour of a deep sand bed (dsb), a bare sump and skimmer.

The decision for the removal of the wet/dry was that the aerobic conditions favoured the formation of nitrates. A dsb allowed for anaerobic areas where nitrates were reduced.

Looks like a more thorough reading of that thread is in order. Always more to learn. That's what I love about fishkeeping.

This post has been edited by grantaustralia: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 4:57 pm

[bekko]

The mechanism through which trickle towers lower nitrates is not anaerobic denitrification, but ammonia volatilization. Ammonia volatilization (driving ammonia off to the atmosphere) is not very efficient at our pH levels because much of it is in the form of the more stable and less toxic ammonium. However, the wet/dry system provides frequent "opportunities" for an ammonia molecule to escape to the atmosphere and as they escape the equilibrium converts more ammonium to ammonia. So, trickle towers do not really remove nitrate. What they do is remove ammonia which is the ultimate source of the nitrate.

-steve