On 3/8, I bought my 1st tank, a 72G with running Emperor 400, Magnum 350 and 20 cichlids.
Set up the tank with 10G old water, but unfortunately 4 fish died the 1st day.
Turned out my tank had ~1 NH3, 0 Nitrite, ~5 nitrate.
I treated with Prime every other day. Made 10% water change on 3/14, 30% change on 3/21.
The NH3 stayed under 1, nitrite 0, I didn't measure nitrate except for the 1st few days since I still had 0 nitrite.
Finally on 3/29, I had 0 NH3, 0 Nitrite, 5-10 Nitrate and the measurement's stayed the same since then.
I only added ~4G water every week to make up for evaporation, no real water change.
Today 4/18, my nitrate is still just about ~10. All remaining 16 fish are healthy, eat well and swim about freely.
My question is if I need to make regular water change if my nitrate stays low?
Is it strange that it does not go up?
Thanks.
Set up the tank with 10G old water, but unfortunately 4 fish died the 1st day.
Turned out my tank had ~1 NH3, 0 Nitrite, ~5 nitrate.
I treated with Prime every other day. Made 10% water change on 3/14, 30% change on 3/21.
The NH3 stayed under 1, nitrite 0, I didn't measure nitrate except for the 1st few days since I still had 0 nitrite.
Finally on 3/29, I had 0 NH3, 0 Nitrite, 5-10 Nitrate and the measurement's stayed the same since then.
I only added ~4G water every week to make up for evaporation, no real water change.
Today 4/18, my nitrate is still just about ~10. All remaining 16 fish are healthy, eat well and swim about freely.
My question is if I need to make regular water change if my nitrate stays low?
Is it strange that it does not go up?
Thanks.