Starting up my first 10g tank cycle, i added API quick start about 24hrs ago and my amonia and nitrites are finally to 0 🎉 but my nitrates look low/nonexistent? Not sure how thats possible lol but is this okay to finally add fish? Woohoo!
10gal, 78F, no fish, heavily planted
https://i.redd.it/yj9p0dqj994g1.jpeg
Posted by Potential-Noise-8317
6 Comments
Plants use nitrate as fertilizer. So does algae. It is not particularly unusual for nitrates to be low or undetectable in planted tanks, especially when you have a low bioload.
It’s possible for nitrates to be 0 in planted tanks. How long have you been running it? From your post it sounds like you set it up 24 hours ago, in which case it is not long enough.
Depends on how long it’s been cycling, I’d leave it for one more week and see if it keeps these levels, you don’t want to jump the gun and add fish only for the cycle to turn out not fully completed the next day
Have you added an ammonia source? There won’t be nitrates if there’s no ammonia source to be converted.
You may have already done this, but make sure you follow the instructions to a T for nitrates and shake the crap outta that bottle and the tube after haha
Heavily planted. Sounds like ur plants are eating all ur nitrates. Yay! Fish time! Not sure what ur planning on but if possible just get half the amount of fish first to give ur biological bacteria time to catch up to the new bioload. U can also feed just a little light the first few weeks for same reason. It’s good to have at least detectable nitrates around 1-5 ppm just so the plants have some food. But if plants aren’t showing signs of deficiency then no worries. Sounds like ur doing a great job!