Where have them nitrates gone?

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Fatcatmatt

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Apr 11, 2020
Messages
33
Hi there.

Very quick question. I’ve been running my tank for 1.5 months or so. With daily use of prime and stability. My nitrate test strips have been unreliable so I finally got my liquid nitrate kit today.

Yesterday readings.
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0.13 (intentionally overfed for one day to see if my ammonia could keep up the zero, it did)

Today
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0.02/0.03
Nitrate 0.

Considering my ammonia has been 0, (daily feed of one honey gourami, 9 ember and 7 shrimps). Definitely I’m at some point of my cycle. But I see nitrite reducing though nitrate is still zero? Where would it have gone lol. I’ve got a few plants in there(java ferns, water weeds, moss), would that mean my plants were so quick to absorb whatever nitrate that there’s present?

The kit shows a darker shade of 0, but when I asked the seller, he mentioned my reading is 0 and my water quality is acceptable. Is nitrate meant to be zero? from what I read, it should still be between 10-20? Puzzled. Or did I just buy another dud kit. where I live(I moved to china), unfortunately I have trouble finding the API kit (otherwise it’s 100USD équivalent)
 

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You are possibly not doing the test properly. Assuming you are using API test kit you really need to shake bottle #2 hard before adding to the test tube. Follow the instructions religiously otherwise you get false 0ppm reading.
 
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