Stuman
New Member
Hello. Getting back into the hobby. Although the last time I was young and had no knowledge on much. Basically I don’t have any issues yet but am wondering why I have zero nitrates.
Setup a 55 gallon about 3 months ago. Started with pool filter sand and fake plants until I slowly started buying real plants to replace them and used liquid ammonia to start to cycle tank. After 3 weeks my ammonia over that time never got above .5ppm After the 4th week it dropped and I began adding 2 fish at a time for the next month and a half. Checking parameters every other day or so and ammonia still never got past .5 mainly .25ppm or 0ppm. Also never had over 0ppm nitrites. Fast forward I now have 4 platys 3 Mollys (young) a bristle nose pleco. 5 mystery snails. I have 3 Amazon swords 10 individual anubias 4 Java ferns and 2 money wart potted plants that I would say gave me 15 individual stems. Large driftwood in the tank. I do 20-40% water changes weekly. Have not lost a single fish or seen any issues with fish. Have not added any fish in 2 weeks. But besides a few weeks ago when my testing kit claimed 5ppm nitrates. I have consistently read 0 nitrates along with 0 ammonia or nitrites. I’m using api test strips and api master test kit. I read about not doing the master kit correctly by not shaking the bottle before but I no I’m doing all that correctly. I feed 1 time a day to avoid ammonia spikes seeing the tanks new. Just wondering if it’s because I have so many plants or I’m doing too big of water changes on why I have no nitrates. Because I believe I need some to feed the plants even though most the plants seem to be doing good. I also don’t use co2 just seachem flourish and root tabs. Any thoughts on the 0 nitrates I’m consistently getting. I guess it’s not a bad thing seeing everything is going well but I’m also only about 3-4 months in.
Here’s a photo of my tank for reference on plants
Ph 7.3
Gh 150
Temp 77
Kh40
Thanks!
- Stu
Setup a 55 gallon about 3 months ago. Started with pool filter sand and fake plants until I slowly started buying real plants to replace them and used liquid ammonia to start to cycle tank. After 3 weeks my ammonia over that time never got above .5ppm After the 4th week it dropped and I began adding 2 fish at a time for the next month and a half. Checking parameters every other day or so and ammonia still never got past .5 mainly .25ppm or 0ppm. Also never had over 0ppm nitrites. Fast forward I now have 4 platys 3 Mollys (young) a bristle nose pleco. 5 mystery snails. I have 3 Amazon swords 10 individual anubias 4 Java ferns and 2 money wart potted plants that I would say gave me 15 individual stems. Large driftwood in the tank. I do 20-40% water changes weekly. Have not lost a single fish or seen any issues with fish. Have not added any fish in 2 weeks. But besides a few weeks ago when my testing kit claimed 5ppm nitrates. I have consistently read 0 nitrates along with 0 ammonia or nitrites. I’m using api test strips and api master test kit. I read about not doing the master kit correctly by not shaking the bottle before but I no I’m doing all that correctly. I feed 1 time a day to avoid ammonia spikes seeing the tanks new. Just wondering if it’s because I have so many plants or I’m doing too big of water changes on why I have no nitrates. Because I believe I need some to feed the plants even though most the plants seem to be doing good. I also don’t use co2 just seachem flourish and root tabs. Any thoughts on the 0 nitrates I’m consistently getting. I guess it’s not a bad thing seeing everything is going well but I’m also only about 3-4 months in.
Here’s a photo of my tank for reference on plants
Ph 7.3
Gh 150
Temp 77
Kh40
Thanks!
- Stu
