Does the tank tell its own story?? Or are the test kits always accurate.

Alright, so lately when I've been testing my nitrates they either come up as 40 or with a reading of 0. The tanks doing awesome, crystal clear water, no nuisance algae at all and the fish are all healthy. Which should I trust the tank or the kits?? Should I be worried about nitrates as much of the tank appears perfectly healthy? Thanks 8)

 

what kits are u using?

 

Well, the best question would be what kind of Test kits do you have?
and how old are they?

Also, how long has your tank been set up for?

 

also what corals are in the tank? are they colorful or brown

 

The tank is 4-5 months old and the test kit is a API drip test kit, Iv had it for about a month.

 

are you holding the vial against the color chart to read it or are you holding it off a little....if you hold it off the white part of the color chart by 1/4" it will look much lighter in color....in my experience with high nitrate is that the tank will look fine for awhile then a breakout of algae will strike overnight.. whats your p04 level?

 

I mean like what's their expiration date. Sometimes they sell them from the LFS and they are already pretty old. ( sometimes expired if you don't check).

IF they are new, granted you are doing the tests correctly, then I would trust the results from the Kits.

Nitrates are not as bad as it is ammonia, so you could have healthy specimens and no algae for a good while. If the tests keep coming up high, Maybe a small water change would help.

 

shake the life out of the #2 bottle for a minute on the nitrate test to get accurate and repeatable readings....there are pretty good if used right...what kind of rock did you use?it could be leaching

 

agree with everyone else

nitrate levels tend to increase, slowly or rapidly, if the tank is not managed to avoid it
they do not IME bounce up and down like a yoyo, thus I would also assume test kit issues

and I would also follow my instincts with regard overall condition of the aquarium and it's inhabitants if I was in doubt over a test kit result