Perfect water levels with NO water changes?
- Thread starter Ryan Rioux
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I would not put any stock in your API kit for nitrates. Notoriously inaccurate readings for anything outside of Ammonia and Nitrites IME.
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All systems are different, it will take longer to accumulate nutrients in some systems as it will in another. It also depends on the bioload, yours looks to be fairly small so that's a factor. Really though you've only tested a few parameters there (I'll make a note here that I don't trust that test kit) there's plenty more that could be off and in need of replenishing. Also there's trace elements that are replaced with WC's too, so I'd say definitely still do them.
Waters
"...in perfect isolation, here behind my wall."
As far as the 0 nitrates go, it is possible to never see any if you have good, high quality porous rock with anaerobic bacteria deep within the rock. The same thing can be accomplished with a deep sand bed. I ran my existing tank for almost a year without ever seeing any nitrates (had to start dosing). That being said, I still do weekly water changes for the reasons that everybody else stated.
