Nitrate Disapearing With No Water Change

Yes another question....
Tell me why....fishless cycle

Ammonia drops from 4ppm to 0 in 12 hours

Nitrite was a steady 2.0

Nitrate was 160ppm

Today same thing with ammonia
Same thing with nitrite
But my nitrate has gone frpm 160 to 5 overnight.....

Where did my nitrate go? (No water changes)

 

Do you have any plants? Are you using the API liquid test for nitrate? If you don't shake/smack the second bottle hard enough it can give false readings.

 

I don't think that's possible.. bad test results on one or the other I'm guessing.

 

I think shutterbug nailed it.

 

Please refresh my memory. Did you add bottled bacteria? I've never use one but maybe if you used it it is giving you false readings.

I can see the nitrites being gone. In fact that is what we want to see and are hoping happens soon but I can't think of any reason other than tons of plants or massive water changes causing the nitrates to drop like that over night. Did you repeat the test?

 

For the API freshwater test it can give a false positive reading for nitrates if there are nitrites present

 

For the API freshwater test it can give a false positive reading for nitrates if there are nitrites present

That is interesting. I'd not heard it before. Is this something you personally experienced?

I ask because that wasn't my experience while cycling my tank. I didn't get any nitrate readings at all while I was registering nitrites but did when my nitrite reading dropped to zero. It could be I had nitrates during that time but was doing daily water changes during the 4 or 5 days I was seeing nitrites so I may have kept the nitrates negligible.

 

Yes, it was a personal experience of mine and a bit of a mishap with fishless cycling. I tested about 2ppm nitrites and about 40ppm nitrates (I think that's what it was anyway), and no ammonia, so I did war changes to get rid of the nitrites (would have gotten rid of most of the nitrates anyway) but after testing failed to get any nitrate readings. For about a week after, the nitrItes still built up and I didn't get actual nitrate reading for another week. I did find a couple of other people who experienced the same/similar occurrence.

 

Although I learnt a lot..... I'm going to admit fault here...

Although embarrassing I admit..... I didnt do the bottle shake.....

 

Although I learnt a lot..... I'm going to admit fault here...

Although embarrassing I admit..... I didnt do the bottle shake.....

lol! join the club, mate! we've all missed that part

you need to shake bottle #2 for 30-45 seconds like your life depends on it. then immediately add the drops. once you add the 10 drops, shake the test tube (cap on) like your life depends on it for 60 seconds. then wait the full 5 mins to read the results.

 

Although I learnt a lot..... I'm going to admit fault here...

Although embarrassing I admit..... I didnt do the bottle shake.....

Join the crowd.

But when that happens, I immediately know I screwed up

 

If you've done a lot of tests without shaking you may have permanently affected accuracy. Probably not a lot though. Just be aware.