Aqua-balance: Do you work to keep your nitrates stable?

[TWYOUNG]

Kind of amazed by some of the responses about nitrate and all the people that actually dose nitrate (the stump destroyer one has always raised an eyebrow lol) and phosphate. I've had numerous tanks over the years and never had a low nitrate issue (or phosphate for that matter). Just curious the situation and cause. If I were to guess it would be people with mostly acro tanks chasing ultra low nutrients with little or no fish or other animals in the tank and minimal bio diversity?? Also going to guess no sandbed.

I think virtually everyone who starts a new tank with no live rock or sand runs into this issue.

 

[TheSheff]

"Unfortunately" i involuntarily keep an ultra low nutrient system. Its a 33g long system thats understocked for a few unfortunate reasons and test results always come back 0 for phosphates and nitrates despite heavy manual dosing of neonitro and neophos.

Not to say these products aren't working, they are, its jusy my fuge is working a bit *too* well and i need to keep tuning it until my nutrients can constantly stay above 0

I had the same issue. the best decision i ever made was to remove the chaeto, that's what's holding you back. Then, if you need to lower nutrients just dose NoPoX as needed.

 

[Nano_Man]

Vinegar dosing

 

[Subsea]

The closer I watch nitrate and phosphate, the more tendency I have to mess with them, and the worse my tank looks for it. In my hobby experience, my tanks are always happier when I just ignore N&P and stay regular with feeding and water changes.

After > 50 years of Reefing, I have leaned not to sweat the small stuff and after 75 years on Earthm it’s all small stuff.

With unopened 10 year old test kits, I am not big on micro managing mature systems. For me, the adventure is to achieve harmony & balance in what Oceaneering 101 called Dynamic Equilibrium.

 

[doubleshot00]

I try to keep a balance but i like higher nutrients. I like my NO3 to be 20+ and po4 .15+. Lately the po4 has been .3-.4 and the tank sows a bit. Trying not to use GFO at the moment.

 

[bakbay]

My second tank was doing so well and N&P were climbing, esp N was > 30. Part of my low/zero maintenance program, I added chaeto to the fuge. Well, things took a nose dive since I haven't been testing lately -- both N&P bottom'ed out and now I'm dosing N&P to bring them back up! SPS didn't like it and some frags actually STN'ed

I've removed chaeto since it was working too well & hard to control. Lessons learned, ain't going back to chaeto in the future -- keep it simple and let nutrients rise.

 

[Mikeltee]

Just feed more and turn your skimmer way down or off a few days a week. You are close to getting dinos.