Where have them nitrates gone?

[Fatcatmatt]

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)

 

[Aiken Drum]

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.