What happened to my Nitrates?

[Krayzie]

Doing a fishless cycle, and my ammonia goes from ~4 to ~1 every day. I have off the chart nitrites. My Nitrates were 20ppm 3 days ago, the next day around 40. Now I have 0? Im so confused. I have done NO water changes.

 

[shellieca]

Doing a fishless cycle, and my ammonia goes from ~4 to ~1 every day. I have off the chart nitrites. My Nitrates were 20ppm 3 days ago, the next day around 40. Now I have 0? Im so confused. I have done NO water changes.

Are you sure you tested correctly? When I have odd ball readings I always retest to make sure. I assume you're using a liquid test? Do you have a lot of plants?

 

[jlk]

Have you checked your ph? Has it dropped?

 

[Krayzie]

Are you sure you tested correctly? When I have odd ball readings I always retest to make sure. I assume you're using a liquid test? Do you have a lot of plants?

I will recheck now, and yes I use the API Master Test. I only have fake plants.

 

[Krayzie]

Have you checked your ph? Has it dropped?

I checked my PH last night at it was off the charts high. Been like this for a while now actually.

 

[tamtam]

When you retest the nitrates make sure you bang those bottles really good before the test. Many people have issues with this test giving wrong readings if things are mixed up well enough in the bottles before testing.