good bacteria dissappeared?

[panboy]

so i was checking my 10g tank, which has 4 platies, and 3 cories (2 babies).
ammonia reading wasnt zero, but there was barely anything,
nitrite is 0 and nitrate is reading is 0 also.....

i dont think nitrate should be zero...

what happened?

i just checked a week ago and i had a little nitrate, and i havent changed the water since.

tank has been up for months now

 

[Bol]

Do you have live plants?

 

[panboy]

yes i have 3 plants, 2 are semi new, one is really big

 

[Lithril]

If your nitrate has dropped you definately want to be checking your ammonia and nitrite levels.

Live plants use Nitrate as a food source so depending on the fish stocking and plant numbers etc you can definately get a drop.

 

[Mamaschild]

I had a fully cycled and mature (~6-8 months) 40g tank suddenly show 0 NitrAtes. It's a very heavily planted tank, so that's the only explanation I came up with. No mini-cycle or anything like that ever occurred.