waterdrop
Enthusiastic "Re-Beginner"
Yes, BTT (thank you BTT!) has explained what I said better than I would have, lol!
Going on what he's explained, since your nitrate(NO3) result for your tap water was 5, you will now be able to suspect that water changes are adding a little nitrate to your tank and that not all the nitrate readings you will see in your tank in the future will be due only to the nitrogen cycle process. As BTT says, nitrate(NO3) is not typically an "action item" nearly as much as ammonia and nitrite(NO2) are.
One other minor thing I'd mention is to go ahead and perform both the low and high pH tests the next few times just so that you can establish, out of curiosity and for your logbook, whether your baseline pH in the tank is down in the low test range, or sitting right in the breakpoint area between the two test ranges. You see, if you were always performing the high test and it was always giving its lowest result, you might really have an even lower pH but just wouldn't be seeing it because the high test can't go that low. Make sense?
And why would you want to know the pH of your tank? As BTT says, its mostly because you want to get a feel for how much it fluctuates over time and how quickly it fluctuates. A good environment for your fish is one where the pH doesn't fluctuate too much or too quickly, and you'll want to have the feel of your "normal" pH range established in your mind so that if someday you get a very different reading, you'll actually -know- that its different and something has happened.
~~waterdrop~~
Going on what he's explained, since your nitrate(NO3) result for your tap water was 5, you will now be able to suspect that water changes are adding a little nitrate to your tank and that not all the nitrate readings you will see in your tank in the future will be due only to the nitrogen cycle process. As BTT says, nitrate(NO3) is not typically an "action item" nearly as much as ammonia and nitrite(NO2) are.
One other minor thing I'd mention is to go ahead and perform both the low and high pH tests the next few times just so that you can establish, out of curiosity and for your logbook, whether your baseline pH in the tank is down in the low test range, or sitting right in the breakpoint area between the two test ranges. You see, if you were always performing the high test and it was always giving its lowest result, you might really have an even lower pH but just wouldn't be seeing it because the high test can't go that low. Make sense?
And why would you want to know the pH of your tank? As BTT says, its mostly because you want to get a feel for how much it fluctuates over time and how quickly it fluctuates. A good environment for your fish is one where the pH doesn't fluctuate too much or too quickly, and you'll want to have the feel of your "normal" pH range established in your mind so that if someday you get a very different reading, you'll actually -know- that its different and something has happened.
~~waterdrop~~