0,0,0 nirates More fish?

[Impudence12]

After 24 days, the tank has no ammonia, nitrites, or nitrates after a day of no water change. I imagine the significant amount of plants are keeping the nitrates down. There's only 2 fish and plenty of plants to go around. Is it safe to get another fish or 2 and start quarantining them?

 

[J double R]

if youre gonna be that heavily planted, you better be confident in your cycle and add more fish, because if your nitrates stay at 0, any BBA introduced to the tank is going to take over QUICK.

 

[Impudence12]

I'm not familiar with the acronym BBA.
And in theory I could be doing the api test wrong. There's alot of "really important" shaking I could be shaking too fast or to slow..

 

[Coler]

for nitrate shake bottle 2 for 30 secs before adding (vigorously) then shake the test tube after adding 10 drops of bottle 2 for one minute...then wait five minutes for result.

 

[Impudence12]

That's what I do, I just think it's odd with all the shaking.. It reads as 0 nitrates, and the blue nitrite one is blue albeit slightly more pastel blue than the drops I trust that means 0 atleast since it's been like that for 2-3 days now.

 

[J double R]

are you comparing it to the color cards? that's the only way to compare, not to the original color of the drops.

BBA is Black Brush Algae (or Black Beard Algae).. if you get it, you'll know it.. there's no mistaking its presence.

 

[Coler]

0 nitrates is possible in a very lightly stocked, heavily planted tank...I guess just be very careful as you add stock, slowly (no more than a couple a week), testing your parameters daily.

 

[Impudence12]

About the test thing, I'm doing it right.
It's just if I take Tank water vs other empty tank water and do both drops. The fish tank water turns a pastel blue instead of just staying the slightly more vibrant blue that the empty tank water turns.

 

[Nolapete]

I'm not familiar with the acronym BBA.
And in theory I could be doing the api test wrong. There's alot of "really important" shaking I could be shaking too fast or to slow..

BBA = Black beard algae which usually takes over in low nitrate environments. I would suggest adding 3 more rosy barbs for a proper school and a couple SAEs.

 

[Impudence12]

The tank is sadly only 15 gallons, I had some debate on it, and decided that 5 rosy's is just too many for the tank. I'm going to try 3 and see if they can happily live shy of a full school. If not I'll move them over to the 20 gallon(maybe bigger, was vague on how large, but atleast 20 gal) I'll get soon and get a few more. I'll add a handful of white clouds later if all goes well.