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Has any one heard of false positives for nitrite when adding plants and iron fertilizer to a stable tank? I added plants and a few days later iron fertilizer from API. A few days later I got 0 amonia the usual 15 nitrate, but nitrites were .5ppm. Initially I was alamed then I realized the fish did not seem stressed. Fresh water community. I watched the tank for a few days to see which way the level was going. 9 days later all reading are exactly the same. I bought a different test to see if maybe the test had gone bad. New test different company same reading, again all reading are the same. I did water change 15% everything remiained the same, accept nitrite dropped to .25ppm. A week later same thing. I figure over time the water cahnges will reduce this value to 0 ppm. and this will be over.

Any Ideas?

If the nitrite dropped then it's not a completely false reading and there is some nitrite. I don't think I've ever heard of a false nitrite reading unless the test kit was bad or the person was using something like test strips instead of a good liquid kit. Most fish don't appear stressed with such a low nitrite reading over just a few days. Some more sensitive fish may but it depends what you have in the tank. From just the info in your post I cannot tell you why your getting nitrites.

Thanks Sham for responding. Suddenly a couple days ago the nitrite just vanished on both tests with out any additional water changes. I have seen nitrite spikes before, but I have not seen a nitrite low level plateu before. "strange".... This went on for 3 weeks.... "very strange"...... Oh well problem solved.