"Darwin" writes:

hmmm i just got a Hagen N03 kit and my nitrates look pretty high.
It seems to read 50 mg/l (ppm right?). One thing i noticed in the
pamphlet is that it says nitrate levels aren't toxic till they hit
110 mg/l. I always thought nitrates were supposed to be WAY lower
in order to be safe??

Well i started some massive water changes... took maybe 40% water
out today. The test still seems to say around 50 mg/l nitrates.
(the colour scale is pretty wide.. they only show levels for 5, 10 ,
20, 50, 110 mg/l). I thought it would've gone down after the intial
water change but i guess i'll have to keep doing partial changes
everyday to see results??

It most likely went down, only your test is not accurate enough to register
the change. Say your initial reading of 50mg/l was in fact 70mg/l, which
is closer to 50 than 110 and would probably register as 50 on your kit.
Take 40% out of that, and you'll be at ~40ppm, which will probably still
read as 50 on the kit, being closer to 50 than to 20.
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