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Re: [APD] NO3



You can be concerned with either, just keep the 4.4
relationship in mind. Nitrate-nitrogen is the N in NO3, so
it's a smaller value than the NO3. Oft quoted target values
are *around* 10 ppm for NO3 (which equates to about 2 ppm
nitrate-nitrogen). I've heard some report good results with
10 ppm nitrate-nitrogen but I  don't know if that was
temporary or involved a lot of extra maintenance.

What brand/model of test kit was it? Sounds like a lot of
margin in the measurement. Which isn't uncommon with many
of hte test kits we us. I have a devil of a time with some
of those color comparator tests too. It's why I swore off
pH color tests and got an electronic monitor. When I used
the color comparator pH tests, I used to gather the family
around and we vote on what standard color was closest to
the sample. Sometimes it was like a sequestered jury on a
difficult case and we had to recast ballots until we had a
majority (of 3) votes for one color.

Have plants, have fun,
Scott H.
--- Chris Hotte <ecwh at cogeco_ca> wrote:
> So, for the first time in 17 years of keeping fish, I
> decided to bite 
> the bullet and purchase a total nitrate test kit. My LFS
> had it on sale 
> with all the other saltwater kits and this one falls into
> both 
> categories.  Anyhow, I tested my tank and lo and
> behold... it's in the 
> top end of the chart which jumps from 80 to 160ppm. My
> reading was 
> somewhere in between those two indistinguishable colours.
> In my 
> estimate... TOO F@|<$NG HIGH.  Testing the tap water to
> see if the N03 
> test was sane, I got a reading somewhere in the
> neighbourhood of 0ppm.
> 
> After a %50 water change and giving it a bit of time to
> mix in, the 
> reading is down to somewhere around 25ppm. The thing of
> it is, with 
> plants are we concerned mostly with total nitrates or
> nitrate-nitrogen?  
> If that is the case, the test kit states that a dividing
> by 4.4 gives 
> the later.
> 
> 
> 
> - Chris.
> 
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