Rpeinhardt
Aquarium Advice Activist
- Joined
- Jan 18, 2015
- Messages
- 130
My main tank (roughly 25 gallons with sump) had been battling algae for a while and I realized it was because of a nutrient imbalance. Specifically, there was 0 ppm nitrogen and 0 ppm phosphate. Potassium was probably also 0 but I can't test for it.
I bought dry powdered chemicals which worked to get the Phosphate up but I can't get the Nitrates to increase. I bought spectracide stump remover as my source of KNO3 and, even after working my way up to over 10 tsp of it, I'm reading at 0 ppm Nitrates.
I thought the kit might be bad so I tested a small solution of the KNO3 and water and it test as tested 160+ ppm.
I then did a second test on a gallon of untreated tap water and it took 100 grams of KNO3 to raise the NO3 concentration to about 5ppm.
Did I just get a bad batch of Spectracide? What is going on?
I bought dry powdered chemicals which worked to get the Phosphate up but I can't get the Nitrates to increase. I bought spectracide stump remover as my source of KNO3 and, even after working my way up to over 10 tsp of it, I'm reading at 0 ppm Nitrates.
I thought the kit might be bad so I tested a small solution of the KNO3 and water and it test as tested 160+ ppm.
I then did a second test on a gallon of untreated tap water and it took 100 grams of KNO3 to raise the NO3 concentration to about 5ppm.
Did I just get a bad batch of Spectracide? What is going on?
