Are ferts making nitrate levels soar?

[astroman]

Hi all.
I recently started dosing my tank daily with Aqua Nourish ferts as instructed on the bottle for about a week. My Nitrate levels have now shot up to 60 to 80 ppm!
I have stopped dosing for now but wondered if anyone else has experienced this or can advise if it is the ferts that have caused this or not.
Cheers
Tim

 

[Antipofish]

Yes. And thats a good thing in a planted tank. Ferts contain nitrates. Its plant food !

But stop testing for nitrates with a test kit. They are useless and a waste of time. Apart from being horrendously innacurate, if you are doing proper water changes on a regular basis, any excess will be taken out with the water change. 60 to 80ppm, if it is to be believed is perfectly ok.

Oh, and if you dose, then dont dose, your plants will not be at all happy. Its like putting petrol in a car engine then expecting it to keep going when the petrol runs out !

 

[astroman]

Thanks for that. I feel alot happier now!
Back to adding ferts then !

 

[ceg4048]

Yep,
Completely agree with Antipofish. This is a classic case of useless test kits. You need to stop wasting your money on these things. They are demonspawn. Here is a similar story => viewtopic.php?f=11&t=16092

Cheers,

 

[astroman]

Thanks ceg and thanks for the link to the similar story.
My tank, fish and plants are all really healthy and growing so I will keep feeding and not doing useless tests.

Thanks for your help

Tim