Are 'trates ever really zero?

[efrank]

I was having a LFS test my water because I was showing some 'trates. They told me that my reading was.10 and that was as good as they ever see. They said people say they have zero but in fact there is no way to keep them that low. Do you agree with this?

 

[nasotang00]

I have never had 0. I have some fish in my reef so I will have traces of them no matter what. You have to feed fish so fish produce waste. It is inevitable.
For those who don't have any fish, I am not sure.

 

[don berry]

I doubt that you can ever have zero, but when I test for nitrates the reading is non-detectable. Basically they are so low that they test can't measure them. It is definetly possible to get your nitrates way below .10. I bet they don't see much below that because most reef keepers test their water themselves.

 

[diatom]

The other important thing to remeber is that just because they aren't detectible doesn't mean there isn't a problem with them...if you have a lot of hair algae it will absorb the nitrates to undetectible levels.

 

[wolffam]

My 55 gal registers a small amount, but it's a FO tank. I'll be adding some LR soon. My 135 gal measures are undetectable with my teat kit. This tank has two small fish and 210 lbs LR.

 

[dad]

Dangit Sammy, I was just about to add the same reply,
I was going to also add that some things, such as clams, feed upon nitrates.
A SMALL trace of nitrates can be benifitial to a tank in my opinion.

 

[broomer5]

In my opinion,
If you feed your tank
If you have any fish or inverts ...
You have ammonia, nitrite and nitrate.
As mentioned - our test kits are not accurate enough to measure such low concentrations, and the resolution of the kit will show undetectable levels.
But ....
Ammonia, nitrite and nitrate is always present to some degree in a living saltwater tank.
How long does it take for the ammonia to be converted to nitrite, and from there how long to be converted to nitrate ??
There has to be some amount present. Just very small amounts that go undetected.