Where's the nitrate?

"Karen Garza" wrote in message
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There is little to no nitrate present in my three tanks. I consider all
three of them to be fully cycled. Shouldn't there be a small amount of
nitrate? Are the plants using up what little nitrate there is?

Seems unlikely. Your fish load isn't all that high (except for the
third tank), but you don't have that many plants either. In the
first instance, I would suspect the test kit. Get another one
and try with that. Alternatively, your water changing regime
may be such that you are removing sufficient nitrate to get
below the detection threshold of your test kit. (Another brand
of test kit might help with that.) A (far out) possibility is that
you have anaerobic nitrate conversion to NO2 happening in
your substrate or your filter. (Apparently, that is happening in
most tanks to some degree, but not quickly enough to stay
on top of the nitrates altogether.)

Cheers,

Michi.

--
Michi Henning Ph: +61 4 1118-2700
ZeroC, Inc. http://www.zeroc.com