"Gail Futoran" wrote in message
...

Obviously I expressed myself poorly in
some respects in my original post. My new
55G tank has been "running" - in that it has
had gravel, water, water movement (via a
power filter & a powerhead), decor and some
quantity of plants taken from active tanks - for
a month, but until I got close to thinking about
starting to add fish, I didn't even bother testing
the water.

The plants were doing fine with root tabs &
Flourish Excel, so I saw no need to do testing
until about __a week ago__. At that point
nitrates were present, ammonia & nitrites
were absent. The very definition of a cycled
tank. Thus it has been each day that I have
tested.

The nitrates may have come from the RootTabs. Where else would it come from
if no fish are in the tank?


My only concern and the only reason I
posted here was the level of nitrates in my
source tank vs the level of nitrates in my
target tank. I've made my decision about that
so I no longer look for a response on that
question.

I hope that clarify matters.

Again, thanks for the responses.

Gail [----female, not male]