Is this reading 0 or .5

[Artimusclyde1974]

Hey all I have been doing testing the past week every day cuz I can’t explain how my nitrates are at 0. I have a 170 gal and it only has 4 fish all under 2” and I feed very heavy when it cycled I saw it get to .20ppm and water changed maybe 20 total gallons since it’s been up 3months
And now I can’t seem to get the nitrate up not that I want it up I’m happy with the results some how it’s absorbing nitrates on par with how much it’s generated

 

[Daddy-o]

I dont understand the title? Do you have corals?
Cheers! Mark

 

[Artimusclyde1974]

Shoot oops I forgot the pictures

 

[tankstudy]

Looks zero to me.

 

[W1ngz]

API tests are terrible even in person. No one can really give an accurate guess on a photo of them.

I'd suggest a better test. Salifert nitrate test has a low and a high range method of reading the color change so you can get a more accurate result.

If you stick with the API, you should look again at the numbers, they are whole numbers 5, 10, 20 and not decimals. That could cause you a lot of trouble in getting help in the future when the answers depend on accurate values.

 

[Artimusclyde1974]

That’s what I thought ammonia and nitrite are also 0 I just don’t get how it’s keeping up