# My nitrates totally disappeared while cycling my tank.... What the what?!



## rhyelee (Aug 12, 2012)

So, it's been about a month since I've started the experiment of cycling a 2G tank - just to see if it's possible to maintain, etc, you know. The temp was kept at a constant 86 degrees farenheit, with small river stones as a substrate, and a Marineland over-the-tank filter as my filter. Nothing else in there, except some frogbit that I tossed in about 3 or 4 days ago.

So I had my ammonia levels drop to 0 once or twice already, and re-dosed the tank with pure Ace-brand ammonia each time to bring it back up to 5ppm. My nitrites finally fell down after the initial spike, too, and it was about at 1 ppm the last time I checked, which was about 4-5 days ago. And my nitrAtes were almost off the charts by then.

So, I re-tested my water parameters to see how the cycle was going, and it was as follows:
Ammonia: 1 ppm
NitrItes: 0.12 ppm
*NitrAtes: 0ppm*

0ppm!??!?!?!?!?!

I am so confused and do know know what happened... Is it because of the frogbit? I haven't changed the water once during the entire cycling process, and have put no additives whatsoever in there besides pure ammonia. Did my cycle crash?

As it is my first experiencing such a bizzarre phenomenon (and I can't find anything online about it), much and any help you could offer to me would be much appreciated.


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## caykuu (Jul 30, 2011)

Plants use nitrates as nutrients, so I do believe it's the frogbit! Your cycle didn't crash, but some of the beneficial bacteria that was initially cultured might not be needed now that you added some plants. If all is well, your ammonia and nitrites will become nitrates and will be utilized by the frogbit, too. That's the great thing about aquariums with plants- nitrates becomes much less of an issue, if not nonexistent.


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## Trickerie (May 10, 2012)

Dilute the solution to 50% distilled water (or tap water if you know you have low nitrates out of tap), 50% tank water. Test that water to see what you get. If you get a high nitrate reading, then the problem is the nitrates are so high, that the test can't give you a color for it. It happens. If you still get nothing, then fear not, the frogbit simply used em all up


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## ajmckay (Apr 19, 2012)

I don't think that the frogbit caused it, completely anyways.... Though as pointed out nitrates are used by plants as nutrients. Whether the amount of frogbit added was sufficient to do this I couldn't say for certain. 

If there were a place for anaerobic (de-nitrifying) bacteria in your tank I would include that as a possible reason. Most likely though something is wrong with the test. Did you re-test immediately to verify your results?


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## rhyelee (Aug 12, 2012)

caykuu said:


> Plants use nitrates as nutrients, so I do believe it's the frogbit! Your cycle didn't crash, but some of the beneficial bacteria that was initially cultured might not be needed now that you added some plants. If all is well, your ammonia and nitrites will become nitrates and will be utilized by the frogbit, too. That's the great thing about aquariums with plants- nitrates becomes much less of an issue, if not nonexistent.


Ah, that sounds awesome! I'm gonna continue to monitor my levels and add ammonia as I need to for now, but thank you!! ^__^



Trickerie said:


> Dilute the solution to 50% distilled water (or tap water if you know you have low nitrates out of tap), 50% tank water. Test that water to see what you get. If you get a high nitrate reading, then the problem is the nitrates are so high, that the test can't give you a color for it. It happens. If you still get nothing, then fear not, the frogbit simply used em all up


I don't think that's the case since I tried what you'd said and the test still yielded yellow (0ppm) on both cases; so I think the frogbit probably might've used it all up. I didn't know that such a little amount (I only have about 3 floating in there) could eat up all that nitrate, but I'm glad! ^__^ Thank you!!



ajmckay said:


> I don't think that the frogbit caused it, completely anyways.... Though as pointed out nitrates are used by plants as nutrients. Whether the amount of frogbit added was sufficient to do this I couldn't say for certain.
> 
> If there were a place for anaerobic (de-nitrifying) bacteria in your tank I would include that as a possible reason. Most likely though something is wrong with the test. Did you re-test immediately to verify your results?


I added about three small bits of frogbit (with each having about 3 leaves) so I didn't add much.

What do you mean, a place for anaerobic bacteria? Sorry, I'm pretty new to planted tanks so I don't understand all the lingo yet ^__^;

Yep, I re-tested three times and it still yielded the same result. I couldn't believe it myself. But I'm thinking it's the frogbit, judging from the other responses. Thank you for your help!


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## Trickerie (May 10, 2012)

Btw... are you banging the hell out of bottle #2 before using the drops? The bottle contains a powder solution and clumps together. If you dont vigoursly shake and smack it, the test will be inaccurate


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## caykuu (Jul 30, 2011)

Trickerie said:


> Btw... are you banging the hell out of bottle #2 before using the drops? The bottle contains a powder solution and clumps together. If you dont vigoursly shake and smack it, the test will be inaccurate


^This: nitrates can become easily inaccurate if not shaken hard enough. Sometimes you really need to slam the thing into a table or a book a few times, just to be sure.


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## rhyelee (Aug 12, 2012)

Trickerie said:


> Btw... are you banging the hell out of bottle #2 before using the drops? The bottle contains a powder solution and clumps together. If you dont vigoursly shake and smack it, the test will be inaccurate





caykuu said:


> ^This: nitrates can become easily inaccurate if not shaken hard enough. Sometimes you really need to slam the thing into a table or a book a few times, just to be sure.


Man, I wish I'd known that before...

So I slammed the bottle against the table so hard that my parents thought we had a visitor (LOL) and found what you two had said to be true... It must've clumped up! My nitrate levels are still kinda low, but definitely not at 0ppm anymore. Thanks, guys! :icon_mrgr


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## Trickerie (May 10, 2012)

Well.. Heres the problem you are facing now. The concentrations in the bottle are now off, since you used more/less powder than should have been used per drop for who knows how many tests. While it still may be accurate (hobby kits arent that accurate to begin with), if it was me, I would buy another nitrate kit :|


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## rhyelee (Aug 12, 2012)

Oh shoot! I didn't even think about that.... Man, what a bummer!

Hmm... I think I'll just forego testing nitrates since I'm planning to do a huge wc after it's done cycling, anyway. But thank you for bringing that problem to my attention!


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## Trickerie (May 10, 2012)

If its not terribly high, I wouldnt worry about it. Especially if you are just cycling.


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## rhyelee (Aug 12, 2012)

Trickerie said:


> If its not terribly high, I wouldnt worry about it. Especially if you are just cycling.


yeah, that was my thought, too.
thanks so much for your advice!!


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## Diana (Jan 14, 2010)

The nitrifying bacteria do not seem to care what the nitrate is. 

More important for them is to keep the ammonia going so they have something to eat. 3 ppm is a good goal for ammonia. Check it daily. 

Do not allow the nitrite to go over 5 ppm. The bacteria do not do so well when the nitrite gets too high. 

Yes, when the ammonia and nitrite can return to 0 ppm over a 24 hour period, the cycle is done. You can do a 100% water change before adding livestock, so no worries at all about what the nitrate might be. 
If you need to keep feeding the bacteria for a while until the fish arrive, just keep on adding ammonia to 3 ppm. Then do the water change right before the fish arrive. 
By then, it would be important to have a good nitrate test, so plan on replacing that soon.


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