in a planted tank you can bottom out on nitrates. QUOTE]
This kind of statement pops up a lot in various places throughout the forum and is only a partial statement, therefore only partially correct based on the tank setup. I feel it's a very misleading statement to make unless you add to it.....in a planted tank with fast growing plants. This part of the statement needs to be included because in a very low tech planted tank, with very slow growing plants and a large or heavy bioload, those plants aren't going to hardly use any nitrate at all. Nitrates are going to continue to climb between water changes.
Definitely get a liquid nitrate test kit, even more so if you're not on a regular water change schedule and not doing thorough enough substrate cleaning. You might be surprised at your high nitrate level. Nitrates at levels above 40 will bother some fish a lot and lead to health complications and not affect other fish much till the levels reach really high.
