My go-to guy on nitrates is Darrel aka dw1305 on Planet Catfish. He runs an environmental and water treatment lab at a UK university.
He says we cannot measure nitrates accurately with home kits. When we get 10-20 ppm result, he feels it is likely 10x higher in reality and that is fine with the livestock. Even well designed planted tanks have 10 ppm nitrate.
He says lots more in this thread and the links found therein which I find fantastically educational http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=36231&hilit=nitrate
Hence, I'd not read much into the 10 ppm or 20 ppm thing.
I do use API all the time and I consider there is nothing better out there for what it does and nothing better is needed imho.
Nitrate toxicity is 1000-10,000 times or less than that of ammonia and nitrite. So nitrate is by 3-4 orders of magnitude the least important water test in the API Master kit.
He says we cannot measure nitrates accurately with home kits. When we get 10-20 ppm result, he feels it is likely 10x higher in reality and that is fine with the livestock. Even well designed planted tanks have 10 ppm nitrate.
He says lots more in this thread and the links found therein which I find fantastically educational http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=36231&hilit=nitrate
Hence, I'd not read much into the 10 ppm or 20 ppm thing.
I do use API all the time and I consider there is nothing better out there for what it does and nothing better is needed imho.
Nitrate toxicity is 1000-10,000 times or less than that of ammonia and nitrite. So nitrate is by 3-4 orders of magnitude the least important water test in the API Master kit.
