water chemistry

finally bought test strips, and tested my tank water. all is good except
nitrates and alkalinity. nitrates high at abut 80 or a little higher and
the alkalinity is low at about 20 or 40. before i do more harm to my fish
how do i get these to better levels. i am going to do a 25% water change
and probably not feed for a couple of days. what more can i do?
dave

Just for curiosity I would set out a glass of tapwater for 24 hours then
run a full battery of tests on it. Many folks have surprisingly high
nitrates right in their tapwater.

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Excellent sugjestion for first time water source's.


As for your high nitrate. It shuold not be over 20ppm. If it is do
several water changes to lower it.

Nitrates are the end of the chain in a tank cycle. In nature, plants
remove it from the ecosystem. In an aquarium, we have to either have
plants, to help, and/or do water changes, other wise the NO3 just builds
up to fatal levels. What happens in a aquarium is the fish produce
ammonia, by breathing eating and of course by there waste. Bacteria feed
on ammonia, and give off nitrite, or N02. Bacteria feed onthis and give
off NO3, or nitrate.

You can help keep the NO3 down. by keeping your tank clean of waste
matter, be it leftover food, or fish waste. ]



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Posted via CichlidFish.com
http://www.cichlidfish.com/portal/forums

(snipped)
ubject: water chemistry
From: Fuzzy -DONTEMAIL
Date: 12/8/2004 7:42 AM Central Standard Time
Message-id:

Just for curiosity I would set out a glass of tapwater for 24 hours then
run a full battery of tests on it. Many folks have surprisingly high
nitrates right in their tapwater.

Also many times the pH canbe quite different after the water sits anywhere from
a matter of hours to the next day.
Something about pressurization (is that even a word? lol) being the cause of
making it read falsely at first.