The Puffer Forum

My water is testing ZERO for everything.

Ammonia - 0ppm
Nitrite - 0ppm
Nitrate - 0ppm

Is your test kit expired? what kind of test kit is it, liquid or test strips? What is your nitrate out of the tap? Do you have live plants? Did you just perform a water change?

kass wrote:Is your test kit expired? what kind of test kit is it, liquid or test strips? What is your nitrate out of the tap? Do you have live plants? Did you just perform a water change?

Test kit is brand new. It is an API Saltwater Master Kit, liquid. Nitrates used to be around 5~ ppm but have disappeared
I don't have live plants. I did a water change 1 week ago.

No Nitrates in tap

are you properly shaking the heck out of the test tubes on the Nitrate test (per the instructions, specifically)?
..........if not, the reading will not be accurate

What's the SG, that you are using a SW test kit?

Right now it's at 0 sg.
If you remember my last thread, Pufferpunk said to keep it FW for 2 weeks until conditions were stable.
And yes, I am shaking the vials enough.

this seems to be the same issue I am having, however I think I can see the ammonia test getting darker a little. but I change out about 30% a week so little zep with 150l probably doesn't put out a lot of amonia

sangrail wrote:this seems to be the same issue I am having, however I think I can see the ammonia test getting darker a little. but I change out about 30% a week so little zep with 150l probably doesn't put out a lot of amonia

You probably don't need to do a 30% WC a week, that seems like overkill. It may also remove beneficial bacteria.
Try a 15 - 20% WC

Ianb262 wrote: You probably don't need to do a 30% WC a week, that seems like overkill. It may also remove beneficial bacteria.
Try a 15 - 20% WC

You are 100% wrong! Most of us here do 50% or more weekly, I usually do 75%. The nitrifying bacteria lives on surfaces, NOT in the water column. Many discus breeders do 200% daily.

Ianb262 wrote:Right now it's at 0 sg.
If you remember my last thread, Pufferpunk said to keep it FW for 2 weeks until conditions were stable.
And yes, I am shaking the vials enough.

If the test kit is for SW and the water you are testing is freshwater could that affect the results?

Yeah, using a SW test kit on FW is going to give you inaccurate readings. If you are using API I know that most kits come with both a FW and SW chart. Just use whichever is most closest to your type of water.

Correct for fresh and salt the charts are different, and yes most of us are diligent about our 50% changes on our FW tanks. For salt its usually a monthly for me but depends on the tank .