Water Stats

[Jazzzz]

125L Very heavily planted
3wcmms
3 black neons
1 platy

amonia 0
nitrate 0
nitrite 0

6 gallon well planted
platy fry various sizes
amonia 0.1
nitrate 10
nitrite 0

6 gallon quaranteen water change 2 weeks ago, sparsly planted
amonia 0
nitrate 0
nitrite 0


Od results i know but it was with a liquid test kit

 

[Ficious]

idk why theyre odd...water tests are water tests lol. I have a 3 gallon planted tank and didnt do a waterchange on it for a month and a half once...did the tests and everything came back fine...the only thing the water change was gona help was the algae that took over. its all well cleaned now but the plants seemed to take care of a lot of waste.

 

[Colin_T]

Plants will use up nutrients like ammonia, nitrite & nitrate and keep them low. If you aren't putting much food in the tank then the plants are probably stripping all the nutrients out of the water thus keeping it clean.

 

[aaronnorth]

Nothing odd about them at all, and in fact you should be adding more nitrate to the tanks, if it is at 0ppm then the plants will have nothing to use and will starve. Aim for 15-30ppm

 

[Jazzzz]

Is that what you get in thoose bottled fertilisers the plants have a fertilser substrate

 

[aaronnorth]

yes, you could just buy some potassium nitrate (KNO3), available in larger sizes if needed.

Then mix 40g to 500ml of water and add 10ml per 100L of water to give a value of 5ppm.

That is the cheap way or you can buy a liquid nitrate fertiliser like the Easylife Nitro

For a 100l tank, 250g of KNO3 (£5.50) - would mix up about 3l (3000ml) of water, with a value of 5ppm. So dosing 40ml (20ppm) 3x a week would mean it will last you 30weeks!
For a 100l tank, 250ml of easlife nitro (£5.99) - 20ml solution (20ppm) 3x a week would dose a 100l tank for 13 weeks!