Disease, genetics, temperature, feed, light, tank mates, starting size, and SO MANY OTHER FACTORS could play a role. Without a well designed experiment to study the variables in question any evidence observed is little more than anecdotal, unfortunately.Originally Posted by rfeiller
Hundreds if not thousands have come before you, in a scientific manner, and they have attempted to prove the claims you just made/implied. They have all failed. I don't think what you observed had a correlation with nitrates and there was definitely no causality involved. I suggest to you other factors were at play that either were not accounted for and/or could not be perceived.