Extremely Strange No3 Reading?

[Blue Ramirezi]

Hi guys!

Recently I was away for a VERY long time (2 months) in a nice trip around Europe

However, It appeared as though it had slipped my housekeepers mind to do water changes (she had been briefed

)
Which is rather sad when keeping discus.
However to my extreme surprise, the fish were absolutely fine, infact happy as every! The tank was, well, dirty as heck but at least the fish were fine!

Getting more and more curious about the matter I tested my water to find the nitrates were a bit higher than 5mg/l?!
Thats LOWER than before!?!?! I am currently extremely confused about it and if anyone has a reasonable answer?

Thanks
- Morgan

 

[ColR1948]

I think this is interesting, to me it shows you had your water spot on when you left and in the 2 months of no changes it wasn't too bad, makes me wonder why it is necessary to do weekly changes.

You don't happen to know how much food they had in that period, that too can contribute to the readings?

 

[the_lock_man]

Is your tank planted?

 

[Blue Ramirezi]

Yes my tank is quite heavily planted, they were fed 2 medium sized pinches of flakes each day

 

[eaglesaquarium]

The key element is that plants can use nitrate to grow. So, it would seem that more nitrate was being used than produced by the fish/food.


Is the amount they were being fed the same as when you are home? Or is it possible that they weren't actually being fed as regularly (just like the water changes didn't happen)? Less food being added, plus the growth of the plants, could attribute the reason for the drop in nitrate.

Or, the test result is flawed.

 

[leighton_87]

If you are using a liquid test kit did the shake the living daylights out of bottle 2

After 2 months the solution will no doubt have solidified - this will give a false low reading - this is very common with the API kit in particular.