This tank has been cycling about a month now. with the plants it’s been 3 weeks. i’m just not sure how to achieve nitrates. Isn’t that necessary for me to have an ecosystem essentially? I did do a fish-in cycle because i had no other choice. Maybe it’s just too soon? I’m not sure. I really
enjoy this and I love this fish and I wanna master this
Posted by katerpillar1545
5 Comments
Your ammonia and nitrites are also at 0 so your tank is likely cycled. The plants utilize nitrates (and ammonia) to grow, my planted tanks will often run at 0 nitrates unless I deliberately add fertilizer.
Make sure you’re doing the test right. The nitrate one is very specific. A month later with no ammonia or nitrites should have some level of nitrates even with plants.
If ammonia and nitrite are remaining consistently at 0 in a stocked tank then it’s cycled, regardless of nitrate levels. If you want to raise nitrates for the sake of your plant growth, add fertilizer that contains nitrate. Otherwise it’s truly not an issue.
There are a few reasons nitrate can be reading 0:
The nitrate test is finicky and prone to false negatives if the bottles and tube are not really thoroughly shaken up, even banging the bottles against a table. So it may not actually be 0 in a case like that.
Plants and algae use up nitrate as fertilizer and that could be keeping it 0. They actually do the same for ammonia as well. Meaning in some cases, ammonia can be directly taken up without ever being really converted to nitrite or nitrate by bacteria, so rather than a traditional cycle plants are just keeping ammonia undetectable.
In a tank with a low bioload and regular water changes, the amount of ammonia actually being produced can be so small that nitrate never really gets a chance to build up to detectable levels.
Dude, your tank is still very under-planted. The plant mass should cover at least 75% of the tank.
If you’re worried about nitrates, the easiest way to reduce them is by adding floating plants since they grow fast and absorb nutrients quickly. You can also add fast-growing plants like guppy grass, foxtail, or ambulia.
If you still want even lower nitrates, just hang a money plant (pothos) in the tank. Within a week after a water change, your nitrates will almost always stay under 10 ppm.
Just one betta in a tank that size isn’t a very high bioload. Given that and the floating plants, having zero nitrates is not surprising. There probably aren’t a lot being produced in the first place and the plants are probably taking care of what is produced. You should only be worried if you start seeing ammonia or nitrites