0 phosphate 43 nitrate

[Tom S.]

What’s the thinking of employing every type of nutrient export methods in a tank of 4 months?
The skimmer and a carbon dose would have brought that nitrate down, while not impacting phosphate much.
Seem you’d be stripping that system of the good stuff.

Its my first tank.. pretty much watched the brs 5 minute guides and did the things. Should I run the skimmer less? Run the refugium light for a shorter amount of time?

 

[Uncle99]

Its my first tank.. pretty much watched the brs 5 minute guides and did the things. Should I run the skimmer less? Run the refugium light for a shorter amount of time?

No issue, there’s are start to every great reefer.
What I’m saying is that in new systems, there’s not enough load to use all these methods to export what’s likely not their.
It becomes “too clean” in terms of micro-fauna necessary in both diversity and population thereof used to keep our tanks without nuisance algae and feed our corals.

When employing different methods of filtration, use only what is required to keep your nutrients levels of nitrate at 5-10ppm and phosphate to 0.05-.1ppm. Availability and stability of these two are paramount, in everything that’s going to come as the systems mature.

Skimmer fine, let it run always, keeps the waters oxygenated and is kinda the “first method” we typically use.

You may find nitrates in the 30-60ppm mark after cycle.
You can lower this slowly with a daily carbon dose.

Make sure you can test for ALL parameters, keep a weekly chart, and analyze trends over time.

Alk, CA and MG, salinity, should be pinned as well. The more these don’t fluctuate, the faster the good guys algaes and bacteria populate, and the less you need to

At one point you may need more filtration as you add friends, or they grow larger and consume more.

Now you can add one new filtration piece, say chaeto in a lit fuge. Measure it’s ability over months.

For me it was skimmer for a year using Nopox as a carbon source. Kept nitrates at 11ppm for me.

When I added four tangs, I started a fuge, another year.

Finally at two years I added a light to the fuge and started chaeto.

After 5 years, no further exports system where required.

 

[educatedreefer]

Dose PNS probio which is a natural bacteria supplement that breaks down organic waste before it becomes nitrate. I use once a week and have the same size tank with fuge. Feed 2x per day. Nitrates stay at 10.

Id recommend getting Microbe Lift Special Blend if you’re looking to lower nitrates.
It has photosynthetic bacteria, your typical nitrifying aerobic bacteria, and uniquely, anaerobic bacteria that will help transform your nitrates into nitrogen gas.
I would slow down on NoPox as I’m sure it’s fueling your bacteria culture, which is why your nitrates might be high as it’s breaking down all the nutrients, but not facilitating export of nitrates.
I agree with others, increase your water change to 30% daily until your nitrates are in the range you desire, but remember WWC and most retail companies keep their nitrates high at around 20-25 which is also where I keep mine at.
The moment you drop nitrates is when most tanks begin to crash leading to bacterial die offs, dinoflagellates, bleaching or corals getting paler, etc so do it slowly.
Feeding fish food will definitely get phosphates up, but frozen food would provide less P than dry or pellets.
Dosing phosphates would help balance and encourage the lowering of nitrates so:
1. attempt dosing at 50% dose of NeoPhos and measure until you’ve reached your desired level
2. Try diversifying bacterial culture with Special Blend Micro-Lift
3. Incorporate water change 20-30% until nitrates drop
4. Try reverse photo-period light cycle on refugium
5. Make sure not to run GFO or change carbon to avoid striping nutrients during this process
6. Be careful carbon dosing and bacteria bloom/oxygen deprevation
7. Avoid cleaning the sandbed since that’s where most anaerobic bacteria thrive and may release nitrates back into the water column
8. Measure daily and keep us updated!

 

[IslandLifeReef]

Its my first tank.. pretty much watched the brs 5 minute guides and did the things. Should I run the skimmer less? Run the refugium light for a shorter amount of time?

Hey everyone,

For the past month I have been trying to get my nitrates down and I can't seem to figure it out. I do 10 gallon water changes in my 65 gallon tank once per week. I have vacuumed out my sump so it's super clean. I have a protien skimmer. I have a refugium. I change my filter socks every 3 days without fail. I dose zeobak two times per week. I dose NP balance everyday. My cheato doesn't seem to be growing rapidly if at all. It looks healthy just doesn't seem to do much. It collect detritus so I clean it every so often. I reduced how much I feed my fish by 50% ( two times per day 2.5 frozen mysis shrimp 5ml total.) I just picked up some neophos and cheato grow and started that. After two doses of neophos My phosphate is 0.00.

Any other ideas?

Thanks!
Tom

No I have a frozen sheet I chopped up into small blocks then I mix it with 5ml of tank water and feed 2.5ml two times a day.

I'm testing with hanna checkers.

I have a hippo tang, lawn mower blenny, golden nugget clown, 6 line wrasse, cleaner shrimp, conch, urchin, snails and Hermit crabs. Not sure if it's worth mentioning I put galaxy pods in once per month.

I've lost some coral I think due to the nitrates being high. Mostly LPS.

Softies seem to be happy and growing.

Ok @Tom S.

It's a new tank. The best way for you to bring the NO3 down is with a couple 30% to 50% water changes. Then, you need to get your PO4 up. All of the methods mentioned for reducing NO3 other than water changes requires PO4 in the system. Right now, you system is PO4 limited. The bacteria and Cheato are consuming both NO3 and PO4. When the PO4 goes to 0.00, neither can consume NO3 until they get more PO4. Adding Cheato grow will add both NO3 and PO4 in the amounts needed to grow Cheato. You need to add only the nutrient you are missing.

My recommendation would be to do two 50% water changes this week while dosing PO4 daily. Dose the PO4 every 24 hours and check the level just before you dose. Adjust the dosage to try to achieve a reading of 0.03 to 0.05. Once that level stabilizes, you should see your NO3 start to come down naturally. Once that happens, I would stop dosing PO4 and see how the tank works for a few weeks.

 

[Lavey29]

Id recommend getting Microbe Lift Special Blend if you’re looking to lower nitrates.
It has photosynthetic bacteria, your typical nitrifying aerobic bacteria, and uniquely, anaerobic bacteria that will help transform your nitrates into nitrogen gas.
I would slow down on NoPox as I’m sure it’s fueling your bacteria culture, which is why your nitrates might be high as it’s breaking down all the nutrients, but not facilitating export of nitrates.
I agree with others, increase your water change to 30% daily until your nitrates are in the range you desire, but remember WWC and most retail companies keep their nitrates high at around 20-25 which is also where I keep mine at.
The moment you drop nitrates is when most tanks begin to crash leading to bacterial die offs, dinoflagellates, bleaching or corals getting paler, etc so do it slowly.
Feeding fish food will definitely get phosphates up, but frozen food would provide less P than dry or pellets.
Dosing phosphates would help balance and encourage the lowering of nitrates so:
1. attempt dosing at 50% dose of NeoPhos and measure until you’ve reached your desired level
2. Try diversifying bacterial culture with Special Blend Micro-Lift
3. Incorporate water change 20-30% until nitrates drop
4. Try reverse photo-period light cycle on refugium
5. Make sure not to run GFO or change carbon to avoid striping nutrients during this process
6. Be careful carbon dosing and bacteria bloom/oxygen deprevation
7. Avoid cleaning the sandbed since that’s where most anaerobic bacteria thrive and may release nitrates back into the water column
8. Measure daily and keep us updated!

Not sure if this was meant for me instead of the OP.

PNS probio is a mix of heterotrophic bacteria which reduce organic waste. My filter socks stay clean well over a week now and are white when I change them out. MI nitrates stay at 10. It is also a great food for corals and inverts. Been using it 8 months now and better then all the others I've tried.

 

[educatedreefer]

Not sure if this was meant for me instead of the OP.

PNS probio is a mix of heterotrophic bacteria which reduce organic waste. My filter socks stay clean well over a week now and are white when I change them out. MI nitrates stay at 10. It is also a great food for corals and inverts. Been using it 8 months now and better then all the others I've tried.

Oh hahah it was meant for OP, but I tried the PNS Probio from BRS during their last year’s giveaway and it worked well for me as a supplement since I was running Zeovit system before I knew better than to starve my corals xD

 

[Tom S.]

Alright I have an update.. Sunday I did 25% water change (15 gallons). I pulled all the bio cubes out of the sump scrubbed the nasty off them rinsed my cheato. I scraped every inch of the sump and shop vac'd it out. Replaced the water and measured 0 phosphate and 41.5 nitrate. Changed the filter socks. Dosed cheato grow and neophos. Tonight I came down and noticed I had some algae growing on the glass (more than usual). Cleaned that up and measured everything. Alk is at 9.5, phos is still 0 but nitrate dropped to 9.7. It seems like the neophos and cheato grow are working. Should I keep dosing the neophos? I feel like that's a huge swing in 2 days. I'm excited.. but also worried about swinging too quick the other way haha.

 

[Lavey29]

Alright I have an update.. Sunday I did 25% water change (15 gallons). I pulled all the bio cubes out of the sump scrubbed the nasty off them rinsed my cheato. I scraped every inch of the sump and shop vac'd it out. Replaced the water and measured 0 phosphate and 41.5 nitrate. Changed the filter socks. Dosed cheato grow and neophos. Tonight I came down and noticed I had some algae growing on the glass (more than usual). Cleaned that up and measured everything. Alk is at 9.5, phos is still 0 but nitrate dropped to 9.7. It seems like the neophos and cheato grow are working. Should I keep dosing the neophos? I feel like that's a huge swing in 2 days. I'm excited.. but also worried about swinging too quick the other way haha.

I had to double dose neophos for several months to get stable phosphate number. Chaeto grow should only be dosed maybe once a week or your going to spike all your trace elements when you combine weekly water changes.

 

[92Miata]

Two doses of Neophos and still zero?
I would not trust that at all, regardless of type of checker.

Why?

You have to dose a ton of phosphate in a phosphate deficient tank before you get readable levels. The water column is at an unbalanced equilibrium with the surface of the rock - and a high percentage is going to adsorb onto the rock, and you've got an entire ecosystem that has been phosphate limited - they consume it and reproduce.

You add phosphate because organisms need to use it. Using it drives levels down.

 

[Subsea]

@Tom S.

Can you better describe how you cycled your tank and what is your present fish load. I briefly looked at your other threads. Are there two tangs in this 65G tank?

Everything that grows consumes both nitrogen and phosphorous. The N ratio of micro algae (phytoplankton)is 16:1 (Redfield Ratio). The N of macro algae varies from 16:1 to 100:1. Chaetomorphy & Gracilaria Parvispora N ratio is 30:1.

In your case, I would dose Phosphorus and I would feed more. Food with bonemeal would have more phosphorus.

PS. I use ChaetoGrow because I don’t do water changes. ChaetoGrow does not have nitrogen or phosphorus, it has trace elements.

 

[Subsea]

With respect to skimmate: it will be composed of living microbes as they are removed from water column.

Skimmate is an export mechanism that will combine removal of both nitrogen & phosphorus.

 

[Subsea]

Alright I have an update.. Sunday I did 25% water change (15 gallons). I pulled all the bio cubes out of the sump scrubbed the nasty off them rinsed my cheato. I scraped every inch of the sump and shop vac'd it out. Replaced the water and measured 0 phosphate and 41.5 nitrate. Changed the filter socks. Dosed cheato grow and neophos. Tonight I came down and noticed I had some algae growing on the glass (more than usual). Cleaned that up and measured everything. Alk is at 9.5, phos is still 0 but nitrate dropped to 9.7. It seems like the neophos and cheato grow are working. Should I keep dosing the neophos? I feel like that's a huge swing in 2 days. I'm excited.. but also worried about swinging too quick the other way haha.

9.7 ppm of nitrate seems ideal to me. Take nitrate readings at same time of each day and evaluate.

 

[Uncle99]

Why?

You have to dose a ton of phosphate in a phosphate deficient tank before you get readable levels. The water column is at an unbalanced equilibrium with the surface of the rock - and a high percentage is going to adsorb onto the rock, and you've got an entire ecosystem that has been phosphate limited - they consume it and reproduce.

You add phosphate because organisms need to use it. Using it drives levels down.

A dose then test would show up immediately

 

[IslandLifeReef]

Alright I have an update.. Sunday I did 25% water change (15 gallons). I pulled all the bio cubes out of the sump scrubbed the nasty off them rinsed my cheato. I scraped every inch of the sump and shop vac'd it out. Replaced the water and measured 0 phosphate and 41.5 nitrate. Changed the filter socks. Dosed cheato grow and neophos. Tonight I came down and noticed I had some algae growing on the glass (more than usual). Cleaned that up and measured everything. Alk is at 9.5, phos is still 0 but nitrate dropped to 9.7. It seems like the neophos and cheato grow are working. Should I keep dosing the neophos? I feel like that's a huge swing in 2 days. I'm excited.. but also worried about swinging too quick the other way haha.

Yes @Tom S., I would keep dosing the NeoPhos until you get your tank to measure 0.03 to 0.07 ppm. At that point, I would stop dosing and just watch the tank for a couple of weeks unless the PO4 starts to drop rapidly again.

I would stop dosing the cheato grow and only dose the NeoPhos.