Is my water test normal ?

[Matt S]

It seems like people say this is impossible to run zero ammonia, zero nitirite, and zero nitrate all the time but this is how my water test constantly and I've used multiple test kits had stores do it and the test kit I used to do this test I bought only a month ago and my water param's never change ? The tanks been up and running for a solid 6 to 7 years and has never been shut Down the tanks 180 gallons and has an fx5 running it and for the last 4 months I've cut down to one 50 % water change a week and at the end of the week which today is this is still how my water test




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[Jc1119]

What is your stock? Planted?


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[Matt S]

What is your stock? Planted?


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No plants at all just driftwood and stock is as listed below

16 inch blue eye pleco
5 inch L190 royal pleco
(2) 4 inch L18 gold nugget plecos
4 inch LDA33 snowball pleco
4 inch L204 emperor pleco
(6) 2 inch sterbai Cory cats
3.5 inch pearl gourami
4.5 inch pair of redhead tapajos geos
(4) 4 inch discus


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[Metriacliman]

What do you have in the filter?

 

[cl0wn knife]

yeah whats in the filter?

 

[Matt S]

yeah whats in the filter?

Charcoal bags, foam and the bottom tray has like white clay piece things in it I don't know what they are they where in the filter when I bought it off someone and the only thing I change out is the foam filter pads and charcoal bags but the filter only gets cleaned every 6 months and after a year I change the foam pads and charcoal nothing special


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[Jc1119]

Interesting. You should show quite a bit of nitrates with that army of loricariids you've got there.

I would say its not normal but if you've tried various test kits something else is going on....

Hmmm...


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[Matt S]

Interesting. You should show quite a bit of nitrates with that army of loricariids you've got there.

I would say its not normal but if you've tried various test kits something else is going on....

Hmmm...


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Well having no ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate is good correct because if they go high enough they can cause fish problems and even death if high enough right ? So me reading zero on all those should be a good thing correct ?

And not only have I tried various test kits but when I brought my water to stores to test my water just so I could see if my test kits were okay the stores test kits came up with the same results as mine


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[Jc1119]

Yeah but nitrates are the end result of the nitrogen cycle and it's very difficult to achieve 0 nitrates even if you're doing 100% water changes daily or have a densely planted aquarium.....

0 ammonia and nitrite means your filtration is working correctly, but 0 nitrates is extremely rare.

 

[Metriacliman]

How much are you feeding?