Addressing an imbalance in Nitrate and Phosphate

[BeejReef]

best of luck. doing nothing is the hardest thing

 

[wesman42]

best of luck. doing nothing is the hardest thing

So I did another thing today. I got a new nitrate test kit from Red Sea (instead of the Salifert I had) and it shows my nitrates are MUCH less, around 0-4ppm. Salifert was showing nearly 50ppm. Just another reason to have redundant kits people!

It's painfully obvious now that the reason for my dinos was in fact because my nutrients were close to 0.

 

[taima1shu]

Please keep updating your progress on battling dinos!! I just realized I have dinos about 2 days ago, I am currently still researching on how to best beat this thing!

 

[BigJohnny]

My Phosphates are 0.08 and my nitrates are around 40. I know this is imbalanced but having trouble with the executive decision making behind how to address it.

Do I stop GFO and start carbon dosing? Do I stop GFO, do multiple water changes, and let nutrients rise? Do I even stop GFO?

I was running a refugium for export before I started dosing vibrant. Now, since the refugium is down, I haven't implemented any other method of export outside of water changes.

Imbalanced compared to what?

 

[Big E]

So I did another thing today. I got a new nitrate test kit from Red Sea (instead of the Salifert I had) and it shows my nitrates are MUCH less, around 0-4ppm. Salifert was showing nearly 50ppm. Just another reason to have redundant kits people!

It's painfully obvious now that the reason for my dinos was in fact because my nutrients were close to 0.

Did you look through the side of the tube with the Salifert kit? If so you need to divide by 10 which is 5.0ppm

I regularly use both Red Sea and Salifert and they are always close to the same.

 

[wesman42]

Did you look through the side of the tube with the Salifert kit? If so you need to divide by 10 which is 5.0ppm

I regularly use both Red Sea and Salifert and they are always close to the same.

No, Salifert instructions said to place on white part of card in natural light and read top-down so that's what I've always done.

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

I never use GFO. It strips the water of phosphates. .08 is a good place to be. Why do you want to change your parameters? Are you have any problems with the tank? Changing water parameters manually can lead to many problems.

I agree with the entire premise of this statement. Stability is the key. I've also found that having 0.5-1.5 ppm nitrates with phosphates in the 0.04-0.08 ppm ranges have worked out very well for my tank. The tank really suffers when nutrient level fall below those ranges.

 

[Big E]

No, Salifert instructions said to place on white part of card in natural light and read top-down so that's what I've always done.

Well, yes you read from the top for the medium to high range. Over 10.0 ppm

Looking from the side is for lower levels under 10.0 ppm to improve accuracy and why you divide by 10.

It's possible you had a bad kit or it could it have been expired?

 

[wesman42]

Well, yes you read from the top for the medium to high range. Over 10.0 ppm

Looking from the side is for lower levels under 10.0 ppm to improve accuracy and why you divide by 10.

It's possible you had a bad kit or it could it have been expired?

I'm banking on the fact that it's a bad kit considering I've been following instructions for normal resolution on Salifert. My Red Sea Pro kit shows my nitrates nearly 0.

 

[DarkSky]

If you have detectable levels of both, they're not imbalanced.

Only when you have 0 of one can there be an imbalance - your probably limited by carbon at the moment. I wouldn't stop GFO.