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High Nitrates in tap water (pic), time for RO?

Jamesrclarkson

New Member
Messages
16
As title says, recently my tap water has been reading way above what I'd like to see.. 40-80 ppm...

How serious is this? Normally I'm sitting around 10ppm in the tank.

Any help appreciated
 

Jamesrclarkson

New Member
Messages
16
Tested today
 

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dw1305

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Messages
2,755
Location
Wiltshire UK
Hi all,
I'm not a great fan of nitrate tests, but that looks a fairly unequivocal result.

I'm not sure where you are located but in heavily agricultural areas you tend to get a NO3 spike in water in the spring when farmers are adding nitrate to grass and corn etc. and some of it is running off and getting into water courses, and from there into the water supply.

In the EU the legal limit is 50mg/L NO3, in the USA I think it is 44 mg/L (sometimes written as 10 mg/L NO3-N (multiply NO3 mg/L by 0.2258)). It used to be frequently breached in much of the SE of England, but some water companies have added nitrate stripping etc.

Your options for reducing NO3 levels are an alternative water source (I use rain-water), pre-treatment with floating plants or a NO3 specific anion exchange resin. Anaerobic denitrication theoretically works, but it is tricky to use and takes quite a long time.

If you have space Nile Cabbage (Pistia stratiotes) is quite effective at NO3 removal, they use it for phytoremediation of sewage etc. Have a look at "Aquatic phytoremediation: novel insights in tropical and subtropical regions:" <http://publications.iupac.org/pac/pdf/2010/pdf/8201x0027.pdf>.

cheers Darrel
 

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