My First Time Of Letting The Fish Tank Do Its Own Thing

[umpsfar]

its been 2 weeks since i did a small 10% water change.
water test=
nitrite 0
amonia 0
nitrate almost 0 / yellow-ish.

its a 145litre tank,
with 3 angels
2 gourami's
5 black tetra
15 baby gupies(6 weeks old)
2 cichids
african clawed frog

how long do u recon till i get a reading on my nitrates.
i must a superman of a filter

 

[Realtree]

This happened to me
was advised to retest the nitrate
and yep I had messed up somewhere nitrate was really 20 not 0

 

[Bobtastic]

Do you have plants in the tank? Cos they will use up Nitrates as a foods, so depending on the number of plants u may never see any readings.

 

[Curiosity101]

It's unlikely they plants will use ALL the nitrates. With those fish in a 145l you'd need a HUGE amount of fast growing plants...

It is more likely, as Realtree said, to have been an inaccurate test. It's really easy to not quite shake the test solution bottles before testing and get a reading of 0 because of it.
Or it could be (if using API master kit) that they didn't shake the test tube bottle for the 30secs required, BEFORE adding the second solution. I've also done that before

 

[umpsfar]

i had better go home and do some serious shaking of bottles.
I've 2 large leafed plants and 3 batches of other plants.

 

[saltynay]

The ACF will pick off the guppies and tetras as it grows

 

[umpsfar]

Yeah but that ACF is tiny, he has not grown since i got him,

And i tested the water again last night, furiously shaking bottles & test tubes at all stages,
after five mins , i had about 5. nitrate.
woke up this morning and the test tube was red ..
cheers guys.

 

[saltynay]

Are you sure he is ACF and not an ADF then?

Water changes also remove heavy elements and other contaminants in the water its just that nitrate/nitrite and ammonia are the most toxic to fish the quickest so a water change whenever those get high is the first indicator in most tanks.