How Much Nitrate Will This Create?

Does anyone have an estimate conversion rate for ammonia to nitrate?

I have a 20 gallon long tank. With rocks and decorations, I estimate it holds about 16 gallons of water. If I do a 5 gallon water change with tap water that has .5 ppm ammonia, and my overall tank ammonia goes to .16 ppm ammonia, and my beneficial bacteria consumes it in short order, how many ppm nitrate will that produce? I have plants, but lets not factor that in right now.

BTW, my math to get to .16 ppm ammonia is as follows: 11/16(0)+5/16(.5)=.156. Since my tank has no ammonia, and my tap water has .5 ammonia.

I'm wondering because I use store bought water, and I'd like to go back to tap water. But I don't want to add too much nitrate into the tank.

 

Roughly speaking, 1 ppm Ammonia -> 2.6 ppm Nitrite -> 3.7 ppm Nitrate.

 

Oh that's not bad at all. .6 nitrate from that is nothing. Wow, so fish really produce a lot of ammonia then, in order for my nitrate to increase 15-20 ppm per week.

Also, just out of curiosity. Do you (or anyone reading) know how much ammonia fish excrete through their gills? Like if I put fish in an uncycled tank and didn't feed them, how much ammonia would they produce? I'm just wondering out of curiosity. Because I know they excrete ammonia through their gills, and not only poop. Just wondering how much.

 

I tried a planted tank with no filter it took a week with a dwarf gourami and a crayfish to get to .25 ammonia in a 20 gallon tank.

 

Without feeding?

 

I still fed him twice a day small feeding and one sinking pellet for the crayfish.