My 29 gallon fry tank has now been running for over 6 weeks and I am still getting 0's across the board when testing. I know the tests work cuz I test my other tanks with them too. The ph is 8.0, KH and GH between 90 and 110ppm.

There is one small goldfish fry now about an inch and a half long including tail in the tank. There are three bunches of plants. One kind is flourishing and is now almost to the top of the tank. The other ones are not diying but also not really growing, I think they need more Iron in the water as the leaves have lost their red color.

So, do you think my tank is/has been cycled and the plants are using all the nitrates? Or is it totally not cycled and the little bit of algae in the tank is using all the ammonia?

I had sorta expected that by the time the fry was this big it would be putting out enough waste to register after a few weeks.

Any thoughts on this? It's a bit stressfull not knowing if that tank is cycled or not, not knowing if I am going to wake up to an ammonia or nitrite spike, not knowing when I will see anything in the way of what I have been taught is a "normal" cycle.

how many fry in this tank, yes plants can take up all the nitrates if the fish arent producing alot of it and will show 0 across the board.
What r you feeding these fry?

There is a single goldfish fry in there. It is about an inch and a half long now, tail included. Most of the time he gets fed 2-3 times a day a small amount (what sticks to the end of a toothpick) of crushed up foods. There is Omega One goldfish pellets, algae wafers, and shrimp pellets in his food blend. Rarely (once every couple of weeks or so) he gets a frozen treat of either krill, bloodworms, or brine shrimp instead of one of his meals.

Oh and I mis added the weeks, the tank has been running with fish since the first of October, 10 weeks not 6.

I scraped off the front and bottom of the glass yesterday to get rid of the algae. Going to go test now and see if that created any numbers with the tests. (I thought the fry would be scared with the cleaning...the little pig thought it was just a really big meal. )

im really interested in the results, since this fish is so small, it might not be making enough ammonia to show up, with a plant in the tank, it might just be keeping the water nice and clean for the fish

Well the test results today taken about 20 hours after I scraped the glass, still showing 0,0,0. I now need to do a small WC to siphon out the larger pieces that settled on the bottom.

I guess I will keep testing and watching for those nitrates. I'm assuming that since the plants are growing that means the cycle is intact and providing them with nitrates that they are immediately using up.

Thanks for the response.

If you have algae, there is def. some BB's working in there. I guess one little baby is making the perfect habitat for now. What plants are in there with him?

One bunch is red Ludwigia (I think thats the name, not sure on spelling), that is the one that is not dying but not really thriving either.

The other two bunches are I think what people call christmas tree plants. They have a stem that grows upwards and little rings of slender leaves grow out of the stem. Once those grow to the top all you have to do is cut them and replant and both pieces continue to grow. I am not certain on the id of these because there are two diff variety of plants avaliable in this area that look almost identical, but have a different feel to them when you touch them.