My Nitrates are too low... Now what?

[jason the filter freak]

So I've been skeptical about my Salifert and TropicMarin kits reading zero for Nitrates. So I sucked it up and spent the $$ on a Hanna LR Nitrate checker. Sure enough after running the test correctly* twice, I get 0.00. 

 

I'm blown away my Nitrates are 0. Hanna checker ULR Phos says my level is 0.5.

 

After years and years of NITRATE BAD PHOSPHATE BAD. I'm hesitant/flabbergasted to think I might need to dose those. Can I feed more? Get a diamond goby to stir up my sand bed? Stop doing water changes?

 

BIO LOAD (LIVE STOCK): I have around 80 gal of volume with adult 2 Bangii, 2 nearly adult Ocellaris, nearly adult Azure damsel, juvi-adult royal gramma, a juvi-adult potters angel and a antenna goby. Cleaner shimp, porcelain crab, misc CUC.

 

BIO LOAD (FOOD): I dose 10mL AB+ daily, feed a healthy heap of New Life Spectrum daily (though I try to make sure the majority is consumed by the fish and not end up on the sand bed. 

 

FILTRATION AND MAINT: I do around a 10 gal w/c with Reef Crystals once a month.Before I started checking levels I dropped my filter sock changes to 2 x a week because my skimmer (reef essence 130) wasn't pulling much and my chaeto was dying. Now I use Brightwell Cheato for the cheato and it seems to be helping. I also run rox carbon for water polishing. Change it every 1-3 months (aka when I remember to)

 

CORAL: Tank is 95% zoa and Paly (the rest is anemone, no SPS/LPS. I have noticed some die off but I was attributing to my lights being too strong, finicky nature of some coral, and possibly tank wide chem warfare from other paly/zoa. 

 

 

[ReefdUp]

I'm short on time, but I dose nitrate. I also keep phosphate on hand to dose just in case things get out of whack. Dosing nitrates will lower your phosphates, so you'll need to be careful. I also keep some carbon sources and bacteria on hand.

 

Does everyone need to be crazy like me? No. Having low nutrients isn't necessarily a bad thing. But if your tank is starving, then you need to act. I'm in a weird situation with bioloads since I rehab corals (the corals have a LOT of die-off, then nearly none, so I have to manage those swings).

[howaboutme]

20 minutes ago, jason the filter freak said:

So I've been skeptical about my Salifert and TropicMarin kits reading zero for Nitrates. So I sucked it up and spent the $$ on a Hanna LR Nitrate checker. Sure enough after running the test correctly* twice, I get 0.00. 

 

I'm blown away my Nitrates are 0. Hanna checker ULR Phos says my level is 0.5.

 

After years and years of NITRATE BAD PHOSPHATE BAD. I'm hesitant/flabbergasted to think I might need to dose those. Can I feed more? Get a diamond goby to stir up my sand bed? Stop doing water changes?

 

BIO LOAD (LIVE STOCK): I have around 80 gal of volume with adult 2 Bangii, 2 nearly adult Ocellaris, nearly adult Azure damsel, juvi-adult royal gramma, a juvi-adult potters angel and a antenna goby. Cleaner shimp, porcelain crab, misc CUC.

 

BIO LOAD (FOOD): I dose 10mL AB+ daily, feed a healthy heap of New Life Spectrum daily (though I try to make sure the majority is consumed by the fish and not end up on the sand bed. 

 

FILTRATION AND MAINT: I do around a 10 gal w/c with Reef Crystals once a month.Before I started checking levels I dropped my filter sock changes to 2 x a week because my skimmer (reef essence 130) wasn't pulling much and my chaeto was dying. Now I use Brightwell Cheato for the cheato and it seems to be helping. I also run rox carbon for water polishing. Change it every 1-3 months (aka when I remember to)

 

CORAL: Tank is 95% zoa and Paly (the rest is anemone, no SPS/LPS. I have noticed some die off but I was attributing to my lights being too strong, finicky nature of some coral, and possibly tank wide chem warfare from other paly/zoa. 

 

 

 

What's the problem?

[jason the filter freak]

18 minutes ago, howaboutme said:

 

What's the problem?

Losing corals, losing color on corals, chaeto dying, intermittent cyano/diatom blooms.

[epleeds]

Welcome to the club. I’m now dosing nitrate and phosphate daily just to keep them level. Even though I have 25+ fish, feed multiple times per day and do weekly water changes. 
 

and now I have to dose a ton of magnesium cause my torches are thirsty little son of a guns. 

[howaboutme]

38 minutes ago, jason the filter freak said:

Losing corals, losing color on corals, chaeto dying, intermittent cyano/diatom blooms.

 

Is this happening?

[jason the filter freak]

59 minutes ago, howaboutme said:

 

Is this happening?

Occasionally. Zoas shrinking/dying off and becoming less colorful is definitely and issue. Cyano/dino blooms are few and far between. 

[howaboutme]

55 minutes ago, jason the filter freak said:

Occasionally. Zoas shrinking/dying off and becoming less colorful is definitely and issue. Cyano/dino blooms are few and far between. 

I see. I just wanted to make sure you weren't searching for a problem because NO3 at zero by itself is not truly a problem. That said, I've used KNO3 (stump remover) in the past. Or you can try food grade sodium nitrate. I have zero trust in the ready made additives in a bottle. Personally I'd just feed more.

[jason the filter freak]

[DaJMasta]

Well, that's something.  I would assume that the chaeto supplement has a fair bit of iron in total, so you may actually already have a source you can dose... but thinking about that, I wonder if the brightwell product includes some phosphate, which could sort of magnify it when so low on nitrates and iron.  Maybe there's a way to dose iron only or iron and nitrate?  Iron is required for most macroalgae, so this could at least partly explain the chaeto growth issues and the supplement helping.

 

I know there are specifically phosphate reducing additives (mostly based on lanthanum, I think), but if it were me, I would probably try to dose iron and see how the numbers level out.  It could be with enough to let the plants grow, the phosphate gets consumed at a faster rate than now and it balances itself out somewhat, though if not, there's the phosphate specific products which could be an option.

[D805]

I just recently started dosing Neonitrate as was getting 0 nitrates from tests. I ended up buying the Hanna HR nitrate tester to verify my other tests like you. I'm finally getting nitrate. Last nights test showed 5.9. Now I need to figure out how high I want my nitrates .

[jason the filter freak]

On 8/15/2021 at 1:05 PM, DaJMasta said:

Well, that's something.  I would assume that the chaeto supplement has a fair bit of iron in total, so you may actually already have a source you can dose... but thinking about that, I wonder if the brightwell product includes some phosphate, which could sort of magnify it when so low on nitrates and iron.  Maybe there's a way to dose iron only or iron and nitrate?  Iron is required for most macroalgae, so this could at least partly explain the chaeto growth issues and the supplement helping.

 

I know there are specifically phosphate reducing additives (mostly based on lanthanum, I think), but if it were me, I would probably try to dose iron and see how the numbers level out.  It could be with enough to let the plants grow, the phosphate gets consumed at a faster rate than now and it balances itself out somewhat, though if not, there's the phosphate specific products which could be an option.

 

I posted the wrong results. That screen shot I was asking randy Holmes Farley about. I have Caribsea Hawaiian Black sand in my tank Wich is very ferrous. 

 

Randy indicated it's pretty much a non issue. I'm strongly considering ending the Chaeto Brightwell dosing. 

 

I suspect the Chaeto dying had more to do with the low nitrates and Phos than anything else. 

 

Here's those levels 

 

I've just doubled the amount of AB+ I'm using and plan to go back to feeding reef roids 2x a week.