Nitrates And When Are They Low?

[nry]

I am finding that nitrAtes are at 5ppm or less by the end of my lighting period. For those who haven't read my other threads I am now running 2.4wpg and dosing Flourish and Flourish Trace daily based on the weekly amount. I have JBL AquaBasis Plus below the gravel. CO2 is via a Nutrafin kit with the pinned recipe.

Is 5ppm OK by the end of the period?

 

[Castellop123]

It certainly is Ok...

 

[nry]

That's OK then!

 

[sophos9]

nry, what are you dosing and are you plants growing well?

 

[nry]

Dosing for 15 gallon/54 litres:

Flourish: 0.3ml per day (fairly accurate)
Flourish Trace: 1ml per day (very accurate)

Water change 25% weekly

Plants are doing fine though I am noticing some BBA is beginning to appear on one or two slow growing or older plant leaves.

 

[Themuleous]

Do you get any algae? And is the only source of NO3 fish food? Has the level risen again by the next day?

EDIT - just noticed the BBA comment, its often associated with low NO3 levels.

 

[nry]

NitrAte (OK, the technical term is NO3!) is the same the next morning, I would say it is possibly 6-7ppm but the test kit values only range 0,5,10 etc. There is minimal NO3 in Seachem Flourish but other than that the only source is fish food/waste unless there is any in the JBL AquaBasis Plus...probably not.

I think the algae may actually be a small amount of staghorn and not BBA though...I'll keep an eye on it.