New nano , cycle & plants

[fr499y]

Usually as soon as you get a few days of double zeros, do a large water change before getting stock to reduce the nitrates

[Vale!]

Excellent!

Three consecutive days of additions of both ammonia and nitrite zeroed after 24hrs.

Well, do as many sequential big water-changes as necessary to reach an in-tank nitrate concentration that you (and your eventual wee charges) deem acceptable. A concentration as near to that of your tapwater as you can get is the aim. What is the nitrate concentration in your tapwater anyway? I can't recall having seen that - but then my brain's a pile of mush and is probably incapable of remembering in any case!

[Edit to acknowledge M's interposed post]

[ozzpoz]

Tap water.
Ammonia , nitrite and nitrate show 0.
Ph 7. KH 3 and GH 4

I've checked it twice with same results.

[ozzpoz]

Is there a limit to how much ya can change in one go. Is it bad to just to change it all at once.

[Chris_jennings]

After cycling I change 70-80% at a time

[ozzpoz]

So something strange ( to me anyway ) seems to of happened. The last time I checked nitrates was maybe Wednesday they were above 80, I decided not to check after that and just do ammonia / nitrite. Like I said yesterday ammonia / nitrite had been dropping. That's now clearing overnight . So in Yesterdays post I assumed nitrate had been rising all week so would be really high. I tested today and it's almost undetectable. I tested 3 times to make sure. Same results. The faintest hint of pink. Not the bright purple it's always been.
I'm guessing it's the seacham matrix , is that plausible.

[SPACKlick]

Nitrite will give a large positive reading in a nitrate test, so if you've been testing it while nitrites were positive you will have had an overly high reading. That being said each ppm of Ammonia eventually becomes 3.6ppm of Nitrate so if you've added 1ppm of Ammonia 7 times you've generated 25ppm of Nitrate in total.

The drop is 100% not dure to the seachem matrix, that isn't plausible but reading back I see you have some plants growing in the tank, these could easily have consumed a significant amount of the ammonia before it became nitrate and nitrate from the water.

[plankton]

Do a large water change before adding fish anyway.

[black ghost]

Are you using the nitrate kit properly? You need to bang the bottles on a hard surface aswell as shaking them.

[ozzpoz]

Thanks for reply guys. I dunno. I tested again today and nitrate it's 5.0 max. And I shook the life out of the bottle .
Anyways I've done a 40 litre water change. Dosed some ammonia , and I'll check again tomorrow.
As I'm hopefully closing in on the end of the cycle can anyone advise on how much bicarb I need to add to get everything to right levels.
. Tap water is kH 3 , GH 4. PH 7.
I'd like a couple of snails and shrimp so from what I've read my water isn't good as it is.
I'm guessing it's best to do it now before I add anything alive.
Thanks.