# two weeks and zero nitrates and nitrites?



## mike61701 (Mar 9, 2008)

planted 90 gallon with 5 RBP. after two weeks the nitrates and nitrites are still zero. I have been hesitant on doing water changes because of the levels, should i still do weekly water changes? i started using ro water to top off this week. Are the plants keeping the levels down?

Mike


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## db04ph (Jan 27, 2009)

did u cycle the water?


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## mike61701 (Mar 9, 2008)

db04ph said:


> did u cycle the water?


cycled it over a month ago. I left it to do its thing, wait for the bacterial bloom, then the nitrite spike. Then like normal, the water cleared and levels adjusted. I added a pleco and some goldfish and waited it out. Once everything normalized i added my plants and introduced my fish. I have been doing weekly water changes up to a couple of weeks ago because of the low levels.


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## [email protected]° (Jun 16, 2004)

The plants could be consuming the nitrATEs, and no nitrITEs is always good, ITE's are always a bad thing. And there's nothing wrong with having 0 ATE's... ATE's are also poison to your fish, but they can tollerate low levels hence the reason we do water changes.

How many plants do you have in the tank?

You might want to just do a 25% change for good measure but there's nothing wrong with having perfect water conditions...


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## cobrafox46 (Jun 2, 2008)

Exactly what Bake said.....if you have a bunch of plants you will have no nitrates. 2 of my tanks are like that.


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## [email protected]° (Jun 16, 2004)

I have "perfect water" in my bare bottom 125 where the catfish lives right now.

I havent done a water change in almost 2 weeks and I have barely 5ppm ATE's 0 ITE's and no ammo...

The tank has a tiny bit of algea here and there that consume the ATE's and with the bare bottom nothing gets lost in the gravel. All the poop goes right into the filter as it breaks up and feds the bacteria...

I still do waterchanges of about 40% and rinse the media in buckets of tankwater for good measure every 3-4 week and the water stays perfect...


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## Piranha Dan (Nov 11, 2007)

Is you Ammonia level 0ppm? If it and the Nitrite reading show 0 and you have fish in the tank for that long, then the above posts are correct and your plants are sucking up the Nitrates. Not only is this nothing to worry about, it's actually a good thing. Low Nitrate levels are good for your fish and they keep algea problems to a minimum.


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