Are low nitrates ok

[tommyk]

I recently upgraded my tank from a 45 gallon to a 92 gallon juwel trigon 350. I transferred all filter media my stock plants and gravel over along with some new gravel and plants. I put in some pockets of miracle grow under the gravel for the plants.

Everything is going great all the inhabitants delighted with their new space. The new tank was set up for 5 weeks and I've added 8 new fish 4 Angels and 4 dwarf gouramis, 2 weeks ago

Ive been testing all parameters regurally and get the following results kh 7, gh 10,
Ph 7.5, ammonia 0, nitrite 0 and nitrates less than 5

Nitrates never seem to rise above 5 even with 2 weeks between water changes, don't get me wrong I'm delighted(for some strange reason it looks like I've hit a good balance)

just wondering is it ok to keep them at these levels for plant health?


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[Chesmok]

Low nitrates is good. Probably means your plants are taking up all the excess nitrates as fertilizer.

 

[tommyk]

That's what I thought, was just curious incase they needed to be kept at a certain level for the plants.

I'm over the moon, easiest tank I've ever had to look after


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[BBradbury]

Nitrates

Hello tom...

You've doubled the water the fish live in, so the dissolved nitrogen from the fish and plant waste has been diluted in all the added water. It's like a 100 percent water change, so it's no wonder your nitrates are so low.

The trick is to keep them in the 20-30 ppm range. You can do it by removing and replacing a lot of water weekly. If you were to change half of it every week, you'd never have to test the water again. Wastes take time to build up, if you're changing half the tank water every week, there's no time for waste to build up before it's removed. So, there's no point in testing. You know the tank water is always clean.

B

 

[tommyk]

Hi B

Yes I do understand what your saying about the dilution. It's just that it happened six weeks ago. And I have also nearly doubled my fish and since I added them I've had no increase in nitrates. I tested last week, I was delighted to be able miss a pwc during the holidays so I was expecting an increase this week but none yet.

Im tempted to leave the water change for another while and keep testing for nitrates to see how long I can get away with.
I topped up today with ro water today so as not to concentrate the natural salts in the water


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[tommyk]

Just curious is it possible to strike a balance where the plants utilise all of the fish waste and is it sustainable


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