NO3 droping? bad test?

[cars4fun2001]

My NO3 has been on a steady decline. I just tested in and it is showing between 0.00 and 0.05. everything else is great. Could this be a sign of a mini cycle in the near future. Could it be that my plants or soaking them up. The plants are doing great and are pearling for the first time in a long time. I am lightly stock and over filtered but no carbon is used in my filters. I am using a fairly new API master test kit. I checked the lot number

 

[neilanh]

It's probably a few things, none of which are bad.

First, I don't trust any hobby grade test kit that claims to be able to read down in the 0.xx range. lol

But, for relative readings they do pretty well IME. The fact that your NO3 is falling is probably a sign of happy plants consuming it, so I wouldn't be too worried about that.

You've got quite a bit of light, CO2 is good... are you dosing ferts?

 

[cars4fun2001]

I was figuring it was the plants consuming them. The fact that it dropped down so low and the plants had very steady streams of bubbles rolling off of them the same day. It was really cool sight. I have seen them pearl with little bubbles on the leaves before but this time it looked like there was a air stone in the water under them. There is not. I don't mean a bubble here and there I mean a tun of them.

As for Ferts the only thing I have been using is root tabs.

thanks Mike

 

[ricardo48]

Time to start dosing ferts my friend... with that level of lights your plants will just consume ALL of your nutrients and cause algae outbreaks due to lack of nutrients for the plants.

Depending on how much work you want to do etc, I would consider starting a EI Dosing schedule and buying some dry ferts. Very cheap for what they are and simple to dose each week.

This will limit your algae and give you lovely plant growth with lots of pearling.