Hello from Indonesia MFK.
Here in Indonesia, the culture of checking water parameters are not really there. The common knowledge is just to do regular water changes and filter cleanings, and your fish will be fine. And growing up, that was exactly what my Dad did. We have over 10 years of fish keeping experience without testing water parameters and it seemed to be fine. After moving to the States for my studies, I started seeing more and more people use test kits and I recently bought my own test kit. Now that I am home, I tested the water parameters all around the house, starting from the tap, which was from the well, and my aquariums and ponds.
The readings were quite surprising. The tap water itself already had about 40ppm of nitrates. And for all my setups, the nitrates were sky-high, at about 160ppm for nitrates. The water was acidic and had between 0-40ppm of alkalinity. Nitrites and Ammonia were not present. So from there, I assumed that after all the years of fish keeping, the waters always had high nitrates and the fish seemed about fine.
Now my questions are:
1. Are nitrates really that bad if you have enough biological filtration to keep up with the nitrogen cycle? Even after 70% water changes the nitrates are high.
2. How do people maintain super-low nitrates in their non-planted setups? My pond already has plants but nitrates are still high.
3. What can be used to increase pH and alkalinity?
Using Reverse Osmosis Water isn't really an option. I did some research but could not find much on maintaining nitrates specifically. I saw some media that supposedly helped but it looked like regular biological media.
I would greatly appreciate any information given for my learning.
Here in Indonesia, the culture of checking water parameters are not really there. The common knowledge is just to do regular water changes and filter cleanings, and your fish will be fine. And growing up, that was exactly what my Dad did. We have over 10 years of fish keeping experience without testing water parameters and it seemed to be fine. After moving to the States for my studies, I started seeing more and more people use test kits and I recently bought my own test kit. Now that I am home, I tested the water parameters all around the house, starting from the tap, which was from the well, and my aquariums and ponds.
The readings were quite surprising. The tap water itself already had about 40ppm of nitrates. And for all my setups, the nitrates were sky-high, at about 160ppm for nitrates. The water was acidic and had between 0-40ppm of alkalinity. Nitrites and Ammonia were not present. So from there, I assumed that after all the years of fish keeping, the waters always had high nitrates and the fish seemed about fine.
Now my questions are:
1. Are nitrates really that bad if you have enough biological filtration to keep up with the nitrogen cycle? Even after 70% water changes the nitrates are high.
2. How do people maintain super-low nitrates in their non-planted setups? My pond already has plants but nitrates are still high.
3. What can be used to increase pH and alkalinity?
Using Reverse Osmosis Water isn't really an option. I did some research but could not find much on maintaining nitrates specifically. I saw some media that supposedly helped but it looked like regular biological media.
I would greatly appreciate any information given for my learning.
