0's on nitrate nitrite?

[DrayB]

Hi all.
i was wondering what your thoughts may be on these readings.
you will notice a few dates missing, but that is due to them not being entered on my phone.

any questions.....fire away.

 

[gaz]

Is this a new setup?

 

[DrayB]

yep, since early may 2015

 

[twilliard]

Watch your po4!
Keep an eye out for algae growth

 

[gaz]

Everthing looks good to me just get a handle on the phosphates.what test kit are you using? Have you got any livestock yet ,what's your plan?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I'd stop measuring ammonia and nitrite in an established tank. Just a wasted effort.

Are there fish in the tank and do you feed them?

 

[DrayB]

i have had a phos problem all the way through so far. i've put this down to the dry rock/pukani leaching but it does look like this is starting to settle.

all my test kits are redsea apart from NO2 which is salifert

as far as livestock goes i have.....pair of percular, 1 yellow tang, 1 powder blue, 3 green chromis, 3 fathead anthia's. and i plan to get a flame dwarf angel and thats about it.
i have kept feeding down to a minimum lately due to the algae problem I've been having, but have upped this over the past week or so to twice a day.
i feed them a mix of either frozen brine or misis or new era flake or pellet and sometimes chopped up raw prawn and some sea veg sheet for the tangs.

 

[DrayB]

this is a pic of a few seconds ago....this is the algae looking MUCH better and the right side of the scape is due to be re-scaped

 

[gaz]

Little bit of po4 and no3 isn't a big issue as long as they don't sky rocket just keep an eye on them. Tank looks nice so just keep up what you're doing. If you haven't already think of the route you want to take with keeping n03 and p04 in check like GFO carbon dosing,fuge ETC. I like my fish to eat a good amount of food because of the livestock I have and carbon dosing allows me to do that

 

[DrayB]

I'm running a phos media in the sump and have some cheato going as well. phos is starting to drop which is nice. I'm also running carbon.
i also have lanthanum chloride that i dose every day but only in small amounts as it scares the poo out of me i have also changed my salts from redsea pro to aqua forest and also drip in aqua forest pro bio s and pro f, 3 drops a day of each

 

[DrayB]

this is my sump setup at the moment - the (need a wash) filter socks

 

[jackson6745]

I'd stop measuring ammonia and nitrite in an established tank. Just a wasted effort.

Are there fish in the tank and do you feed them?

Randy I always wondered about this. Do you think there is a nitrogen cycle conversion rate that varies from tank to tank? What I mean is do you think some tanks turn ammonia-nitrite-nitrate faster than others, for various reasons, resulting in healthier livestock? Perhaps the hobby level kits can't detect very low levels that are enough to affect corals. Your thoughts?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Randy I always wondered about this. Do you think there is a nitrogen cycle conversion rate that varies from tank to tank? What I mean is do you think some tanks turn ammonia-nitrite-nitrate faster than others, for various reasons, resulting in healthier livestock? Perhaps the hobby level kits can't detect very low levels that are enough to affect corals. Your thoughts?

I'm sure some do it faster, but a lot less sure that impacts health in any meaningful way. FWIW, corals likely take up ammonia as a source of nitrogen so it isn't necessarily better for it to be far less than normal for a reef tank.

When the Mindstream comes to market, one of the interesting features will be real time ammonia readings that may let folks know what different tweaks do to it, but right now it is mostly undetected in typicaly reef tanks.