# odd readings for a month



## Ihavebigpiranha (Aug 19, 2004)

I tested my 90 today and I got the same results as when I tested it a week ago roughly

I use API master test kit and harness kit that I got from foster&smith about a month ago

pH - 6.8
KH - 2*
GH - 5*
NH4 - 0 
NO2 - 0
NO3 - 0
temp - 82*F

about a week ago I tested it and the pH was 6.2 but the KH and GH were both 0-1*. At that time there were also zeroes for ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate.

I haven't done a water change in this tank in over a month now, on december 5th I did a 50 gallon change with RO water after a couple of months of smaller changes with the RO water. about a week ago I added a teaspoon of sodium bicarbonate to bring up the hardness a bit.

tank is a 90T with about 65lb of playsand that I keep really clean with a pump I made to screen the sand. I have an older emporer 400, HOT magnum 250, and a 170gph powerhead with prefilter running the spraybars of a biowheel pro60 with a marineland 200w submersible heater, I have a few various floating plants in as well, can't recall what they are but in a bunch they might cover about a foot of the top of the tank at most.

tank has been established for almost 2 years since its last move, the inhabitants are a pair of RBP 9-10" each maybe a bit less. Feedings are with hikari cichlid gold or tetra JumboMin, about 2 tablespoons every other day. 3-4Tbsp if they're still hungry when the first is gone. the day between feedings I run the sand vacuum I made to pick up the crap and any leftovers. The 2 reds are very active, I have noticed a little bit of them flashing on things but I think it was mostly from me rearranging their plants.

so what's up with the lack of nitrate production?

did the low hardness and pH from the big RO change stop my bacteria? if so where is the ammonia?

my other tanks take at least a weekly change with my tapwater, to keep the nitrates at 10ppm usually I have to change about 40-50% weekly and the tanks don't really have much load on them.

I'm going to get some calcium carbonate tonight to use to keep my hardness up, only had baking soda handy when I noticed it was at 0 hardness..


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## scotty (Oct 3, 2007)

nitrite and nitrate at zero seems really odd to me, what kind of test kit are you using?


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## Ihavebigpiranha (Aug 19, 2004)

oh duh, I put all that info in there and I forgot to mention I use API liquid test tube kits for everything now and the kits I have now I got about a month ago. pretty sure they're reading right, I get nitrates in some of my other tanks that I don't use the RO water in.


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## barbianj (Aug 3, 2003)

I would take a look at the test kit itself (is it old) and make sure you are using the reagents correctly first. My son had reversed the order of the nitrate reagents, and it resulted in a false 0 reading.


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## Ihavebigpiranha (Aug 19, 2004)

I've even tested with jungle strips and get the same 0 on all 3. the liquid kit should be right, I use bottle 1 then bottle 2 like the instructions say for nitrate and I shake the bottle and the tube and all that, new kit too

I just used the kit on my 55 and it shows 20ppm NO3 and the strip test also showed 20ppm I haven't started using the RO water in the 55 yet, tonight I'm getting 15 gal to disperse between my 40 and 55 and 90.

The RO water I get is pretty good, it's from culligan, 6.4 pH and 0 hardness and nitrates.


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## Dr. Giggles (Oct 18, 2003)

Not sure about why your nitrates would not read, doesn't make any sence. However it would explain the flashing with such a large RO water change.


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## Ihavebigpiranha (Aug 19, 2004)

I'm kinda confused on this. I've been using RO water now in my 40 and my 90, the 40 has 1 4" RBP in it and also tests 0-0-0 like the 90 does and I've hardly used any RO in it, maybe about 10 gallons so far.

The 90 has been getting RO water for about 3 months, I started off with 5 gals in a change, then 10, then 15 a few times, then I did a 30g change with it and everything was fine, nitrates were up in the 10ppm range around then, so I wanted to get rid of the nitrates totally so before xmas vacation trip I did the 50 gallon change and since then I've been at the zeroes.

my 40 with the single small RBP has gotten about 10 maybe 15 gallons of RO water in changes recently, the lil red looks amazing with color now, there's a whisper 30-60 and emporer 280 on the 40g

the 40 still has a good bit of tapwater in it as the pH is up at 7.6 and the hardnesses are way high too but should come down after a few smaller changes.

What is a good additive to replace the trace minerals and some hardness into the RO water when I'm changing it? I've been using baking soda to keep my hardness up from 0* just so my pH won't bounce around, but I know there are minerals that I should have in the water that I don't think I have.

I'm starting to wonder if I didn't just get ahead of the nitrate production and the cycle hasn't made enough nitrate for the kit to detect yet?


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## GIR (May 17, 2003)

a quick test for NH4 would be to test some ammonia. If the test comes back as zero then you know that there is a problem with the test equipment.

Later,GIR


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## pirayaman (Nov 3, 2007)

the kh and gh sound rigth especilly with the ro water you are using if ther arnt any fish in the tank then yeah you could have amm0 nitrite0 and nitrat0 or mayybe with all that sand you have produced the all elusive nitrate eating bacteriA how deep is the sand bed

oh hardness has no effect i think on fish except if it is to low witch your deff is eventully with a kh of 2 it will crash and your gh must be multiplyed by 20 wich still only gives you a gh of 40 with will effect your fish and breeding i think


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## Ihavebigpiranha (Aug 19, 2004)

I'm working on getting the hardness back up, I used my kits to test a tank that's cycling and I get ammonia and nitrites but not nitrates yet, but I went out and tested the 90 and I'm still 0-0-0

here's a question that popped in my mind last night, could my plants be taking up all the nitrates that the cycle is making right now? I've only got 2 fish in the tank and I clean up after every feeding which is something I used to not do.

The sand isn't especially deep, if I spread it out flat and even it's about 1.5=2" deep

I'm starting to think that using the RO water is just gettin my nitrates diluted down to where my kit can't detect them. not that it's a bad thing but I'm gonna have to get some stuff to get the hardness up in the tap other than just baking soda.


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## Ihavebigpiranha (Aug 19, 2004)

It must have been that I dliuted with enough nitrate-free water to keep it at 0 for about 5 weeks.

yesterday I tested my 90 and I got 5ppm NO3 5 weeks after changing 50 gallons. Hopefully smaller changes will keep it at 5ppm or lower

My 40 had jumped up to 10ppm NO3

today is waterchange day, I soooooooo wish I could just use tapwater but I tested it this morning again and from the tap I have 20ppm NO3









I will probably change 5 gal in my 40 and 15 gal in my 90, I hope that will put everything back to 0, today I'm also going over to the pharmacy to get some buffers for the water since I don't want to use just baking soda alone.


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## xplosivelikec4 (May 10, 2004)

I have the same problem with everything zeroing probably because I killed my cycle or never really had one. But I do water changes weekly and fish seem fine (5 reds in a 60). Sorry to derail but how would a tank with zero readings effect the fishes? oh yeah tank has been set up for over a year.


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## remy5405 (Feb 8, 2008)

xplosivelikec4 said:


> I have the same problem with everything zeroing probably because I killed my cycle or never really had one. But I do water changes weekly and fish seem fine (5 reds in a 60). Sorry to derail but how would a tank with zero readings effect the fishes? oh yeah tank has been set up for over a year.


im with xplosive on this. i have never been able to get any kind of nh4 or trites trates on my salt tank cause i never rly had a cycle. well i did have a cycle it was just so small that i wasnt able to read it. the tank is now 5 yrs old. i do one water change a year about 25% (just drain and fill the sump which is a 75gal).
i think it depends on the bio load vs tank size. in my case i had 4 fish and 4 corals in a 300gal tank. so by the time the spikes would come it was so low it rly didnt matter. then i added stuff slowly (1 fish 2 corals a month) so i never get spikes.
so if oyu read all 0's then great. thats what you want anyways. unless your a plant grower then you need some traits. no more then 20 id say.


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