Can’t get no darn nitrates

[rja]

Hey all, got me a 29g biocube thats been up for a month. Couple zoas and a golfball sized frogspawn. Here’s my params via salifert:

Ammonia 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0-0.5

salinity: 1.024-1.025
temp: 80

pH: 8.0-8.1
dKH: 8.6-8.8
Ca: 450
Mg: 1400

I have a pair of clowns and a few hermits, conch, and some snails that I am likely gonna give back to my LFS. Went there yesterday and they gave me a whole CUC for $15 even though I don’t think I really need it. Only really wanted something to eat the uneaten food.

I do have a mini fuge in the back with a baseball sized wad of chaeto which could be sucking up NO3 and PO4. (haven’t tested phos but i feel like it’s almost nothing) I use red sea black bucket and don’t dose anything. Feed Sera pellets once or twice a day. Been feeding a little more to see if I can get some breakdown. I’ve been wanting to do a water change but I literally have no reason to other than my alk dropping from 9.3 over two weeks probably from the frogspawn.

Not gonna dose no3 but should I add another fish maybe? Was planning on getting a yellow head jawfish, midas blenny, or purple firefish like months from now but it seems like my bacteria colony is going crazy. Any input?

I think I have the framework for a tank that will mature nicely and I like to think I’m doing this properly but I feel like a month is too soon to be where I am at…

edit: maybe broadcast mysis every other day?

 

[Llyod276]

So the tank is fishless? Then yes try a fish. Dont worry about the nitrates too much. If your corals are thriving then leave it be.

 

[rja]

So the tank is fishless? Then yes try a fish. Dont worry about the nitrates too much. If your corals are thriving then leave it be.

No I have a pair of dummies (clowns)

 

[Llyod276]

Then youre gtg. Low is better than high. The concensus ive run across is that tests more or less show available/excess nutrients. So if youre showing a goose egg, then your tank is absorbing/utilizing the available nitrates. No sweat. Of least concern.

Think about it, until like the past 2 years or so, most recommendations were to keep nutrients at 0. Now its barely detecable. So yeah there's that argument too.

 

[frankieg2293]

So the tank is fishless? Then yes try a fish. Dont worry about the nitrates too much. If your corals are thriving then leave it be.

I thought 0 nitrates are ideal for reef tank...

 

[rja]

I thought 0 nitrates are ideal for reef tank...

I think in terms of keeping SPS, clean water corals but my zoas perhaps like “dirty water” but I really thought zoas could live in a toilet anyway. I think he’s right, better to have super clean water than problems. I’ll let her bake for another month before I resume messing around with things.

 

[dedragon]

I thought 0 nitrates are ideal for reef tank...

It is not good in 90% of situations, very few people are gonna run nutrients that low as there are more issues associated with it, even for sps tanks

 

[Fishfreak2009]

I thought 0 nitrates are ideal for reef tank...

0 nitrate causes dinoflagellates. You want low, but not 0. I got mine to go from unmeasurable to sitting at a constant 15-20ppm by stocking a ton of fish and feeding 4-5x per day. I have a mixed reef with lots of SPS and LPS, zoas, mushrooms, a few softies, and a maxima clam.

 

[dedragon]

try neonitrate if you cant get it up with regular feedings or you can add another 1 or 2 fish. Honestly i would just add another fish first and write down any changes to nitrate

 

[Lost in the Sauce]

I thought 0 nitrates are ideal for reef tank...

I'm not sure where that info came from.

I would Highly disagree. Even sps dominated system want some nitrates. My mixed reef stays happiest at about 30. Anenome tank at 15.

 

[minus9]

I wouldn’t worry about N & P numbers, but I would change how you feed your fish. With two fish, you shouldn’t have much uneaten food. If you can, feed smaller meals throughout the day and don’t just feed mysis, try some quality flakes like cool green and cool mysis, don’t forget about pellets, TDO is my go to, but NLS are great pellets too. With just a pair of clowns, try two to three small feedings a day, just make sure there’s not much left over after you feed them. Maybe pick up a book or two on reef keeping, the sections that cover biology and chemistry are virtually unchanged and will give you some background on the fundamentals of reef keeping. I also think the BRS series is very helpful for new hobbyists.

 

[WisReef]

I thought 0 nitrates are ideal for reef tank...

Definitely not. Corals need to eat too.

 

[sixty_reefer]

Hey all, got me a 29g biocube thats been up for a month. Couple zoas and a golfball sized frogspawn. Here’s my params via salifert:

Ammonia 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0-0.5

salinity: 1.024-1.025
temp: 80

pH: 8.0-8.1
dKH: 8.6-8.8
Ca: 450
Mg: 1400

I have a pair of clowns and a few hermits, conch, and some snails that I am likely gonna give back to my LFS. Went there yesterday and they gave me a whole CUC for $15 even though I don’t think I really need it. Only really wanted something to eat the uneaten food.

I do have a mini fuge in the back with a baseball sized wad of chaeto which could be sucking up NO3 and PO4. (haven’t tested phos but i feel like it’s almost nothing) I use red sea black bucket and don’t dose anything. Feed Sera pellets once or twice a day. Been feeding a little more to see if I can get some breakdown. I’ve been wanting to do a water change but I literally have no reason to other than my alk dropping from 9.3 over two weeks probably from the frogspawn.

Not gonna dose no3 but should I add another fish maybe? Was planning on getting a yellow head jawfish, midas blenny, or purple firefish like months from now but it seems like my bacteria colony is going crazy. Any input?

I think I have the framework for a tank that will mature nicely and I like to think I’m doing this properly but I feel like a month is too soon to be where I am at…

edit: maybe broadcast mysis every other day?

You could get another fish if you wanted, you got plenty of room yet although that won’t increase no3 significantly unless you increase the food also, most of the ammonia comes from food. What do you feed daily now?

 

[Lavey29]

This is why it's better to let your tank become more stabil with biodiversity and microfauna before adding corals and lights. As others stated, 0 nitrates is bad. Corals starve without nitrates present.

 

[rja]

You could get another fish if you wanted, you got plenty of room yet although that won’t increase no3 significantly unless you increase the food also, most of the ammonia comes from food. What do you feed daily now?

Depends on the day— if im busy just a pinch of Sera staple soft pellets in the AM. On weekends or school days I really just drop a couple pellets in every few hours when I can really pay attention to the clowns eating.

Yes I’ve been advised that just two clowns really isn’t “maxed out” on a biocube 29 and a firefish/midas blenny/goby/jawfish would be very welcome in a tank this size from now to a couple weeks from now. My LFS has purple firefish for $30, might need to invest. (My lid is a custom mesh lid that I built exactly for a firefish or jawfish.

 

[rja]

I wouldn’t worry about N & P numbers, but I would change how you feed your fish. With two fish, you shouldn’t have much uneaten food. If you can, feed smaller meals throughout the day and don’t just feed mysis, try some quality flakes like cool green and cool mysis, don’t forget about pellets, TDO is my go to, but NLS are great pellets too. With just a pair of clowns, try two to three small feedings a day, just make sure there’s not much left over after you feed them. Maybe pick up a book or two on reef keeping, the sections that cover biology and chemistry are virtually unchanged and will give you some background on the fundamentals of reef keeping. I also think the BRS series is very helpful for new hobbyists.

I do feed Sera Staple soft pellets which are pretty rich. I try to space out feeding throughout the day as well. I know that it’s pretty early to be keeping corals but the information I get is so varied. On one end you have people who wait 8 months for coral, on the other you have reef builders saying you can add coral the second you get salinity and temperature in the zone. Quite a bit of back and forth on the timeline. My reasoning on adding corals so early was that I had the opportunity to get them all from a tank that was for sale for very cheap.

I do have what I consider to be a pretty diverse culture of bacteria and as soon as it comes in the mail, I will be adding four pod species as well as dosing phyto every other day— if that’s a good idea.

 

[gibec]

I thought 0 nitrates are ideal for reef tank...

It used to be... but some people found that having a little bit of nitrate [<5] is better for corals, now thats where the hype is at. -.-

 

[rja]

0 nitrate causes dinoflagellates. You want low, but not 0. I got mine to go from unmeasurable to sitting at a constant 15-20ppm by stocking a ton of fish and feeding 4-5x per day. I have a mixed reef with lots of SPS and LPS, zoas, mushrooms, a few softies, and a maxima clam.

Gosh, adding fish is just so scary to me, that always seems to be where people go wrong haha. I think that a firefish would bump me up to readable at least. I could loosen up feeding but within this thread ive had people tell me feed less and more discriminatory then feed more generously. Infos everywhere!

 

[Mical]

IME, feed your corals Reef Roids. Every time I did, my nitrates jumped...

 

[rja]

IME, feed your corals Reef Roids. Every time I did, my nitrates jumped...

Now is that a dangerous game to play or should I be safe? I heard small systems never respond well to coral feeding.