Nitrites reading in Walstad tank?
hi everyone! i'm a bit of a newbie to this hobby and have some questions about my newly setup 5gal.
it's been going for 4 weeks. first reading after a few days was 0 ammonium, 0 nitrites, but for the past two weeks i've had 0.1ppm nitrites. (still no ammonium, 1ppm nitrates). (JBL liquid test kit)
it was my understanding that in a Walstad tank, plants are meant to uptake ammonia/um directly, meaning that nitrites should not appear unlike in a bacterial cycle.
what are your thoughts on this? should I introduce filtration/flow to allow bacterial filtration, or change the water, or something else? (so far only did a 20% change and a top-off)
if anyone has some advice or thoughts to share, i'd be really happy to hear it. i'm so very excited to finally have a tank of my own. :)
for specifications :
substrate is garden soil (1 inch) capped with fine, then larger gravel (3 inch). planted since day 1, with stems, moss, floaters. 8W light is on 8 hours a day, there's been steady growth.
pH is 7.5, KH 9-10, GH 10.
i'd like to introduce some ramshorns when nitrites are down, and some neo shrimps down the road.
thanks so much for your feedback💙