Can 0ppm nitrate actually affect a reef in a negative way?

[Reefbuds]

So question is as stayed by the thread. Can an extremely low nitrate level actually affect a reef in a negative way? Or are nitrates actually a positive addition in the correct, low level, amounts?

 

[N4sty T4te]

Its usually not good. Same goes for Po4 you need some in the system for the corals to be healthy.

Think of it like this. You can't grow a plant in soil with no nutrients. You need either built up organics or a constant food source.

 

[Salty1962]

You do need some No3 in your tank, usually @5 ppm. It depends on how your corals are looking. If they are pale and have no color to them then I would get more No3 in my tank. I use KNo3 to raise mine to 4-5 ppm. I would keep the Po4 as low as possible,

 

[Reefbuds]

I'm asking this because I recently began vodka dosing after am insane spike in nitrates. My nitrates are now absolute 0ppm and some of my corals looked meh today. Of course they do this from day to day but it seemed too much a coincidence. Before the spike they usually stayed at about 2 to 10 depending.

 

[mcarroll]

+1 to what they said!

The Coral section on my blog has a lot more on this, like:
Nitrogen cycling in corals: the key to understanding holobiont functioning?

 

[mcarroll]

I'm asking this because I recently began vodka dosing after am insane spike in nitrates. My nitrates are now absolute 0ppm and some of my corals looked meh today. Of course they do this from day to day but it seemed too much a coincidence. Before the spike they usually stayed at about 2 to 10 depending.

Carbon dosing can also be problematic – especially at low nutrient levels. Double-especially on a newish tank.

How have your PO4 levels been recently and how are they now?

 

[Reefbuds]

OK man so I am kind of embarrassed to say this BUT, I still have yet to break down a buy a PO4 test. I know... it's the next thing I will invest in since your are at least the 5th person to ask me this question.

What problems can carbon dosing insue? I mean, everything loves vodka! Right?

 

[Peng]

Don't let 0 nitrate stay or corals just get more and more pale and eventually you star seeing die-off. Zero nitrate is bad. NSW has a very very low amount of nitrate but nutrient sources are readily available and replenished all the time. If you intend to have ULNS this is even more important. In that case you'd want your NO3 to be really close to zero but you dose amino acid and feed corals to keep nitrogenous sources always around.

 

[Reefbuds]

Don't let 0 nitrate stay or corals just get more and more pale and eventually you star seeing die-off. Zero nitrate is bad. NSW has a very very low amount of nitrate but nutrient sources are readily available and replenished all the time. If you intend to have ULNS this is even more important. In that case you'd want your NO3 to be really close to zero but you dose amino acid and feed corals to keep nitrogenous sources always around.

OK it may sound noobish but what nitrogenous sources would you recommend if NO3 is extremely low? Also, what is ULNS?

 

[Peng]

To make it even simpler, organisms need nutrients for most of their biosynthetic activities. Phosphate and nitrogen are involved in making the most important energy molecule - ATP (literally adenosine triphosphate with 3 phosphates and an adenosine which is made from a complex pathway involving vitamin B9 and several amino acids which are made by taking up nitrogen via the form of NO3 by plants and algae like zooxanthellae and in short provides corals energy) and keeps us alive. Zooxanthellae that live in your corals need nutrients just as plants need nutrients in the soil. When nutrients are very low they die and corals become pale.

 

[Reefbuds]

To make it even simpler, organisms need nutrients for most of their biosynthetic activities. Phosphate and nitrogen are involved in making the most important energy molecule - ATP (literally adenosine triphosphate with 3 phosphates and an adenosine which is made from a complex pathway involving vitamin B9 and several amino acids which are made by taking up nitrogen via the form of NO3 by plants and algae like zooxanthellae and in short provides corals energy) and keeps us alive. Zooxanthellae that live in your corals need nutrients just as plants need nutrients in the soil. When nutrients are very low they die and corals become pale.

OK so in short short, corals need a low level of nitrates to effectively photosynthesize and produce energy?

 

[mcarroll]

ULNS is a special way of cultivating cyano and dinoflagellates.

(joking there)

Here's a good read on nitrate dosing...
A Nitrate Dosing Calculator For Better Tank Health (And Better Coral Color!)

Here's a good read on elevated carbon's impact on the micrbial food web:
Effects of organic carbon, organic nitrogen, inorganic nutrients, and iron additions on the growth of phytoplankton and bacteria during a brown tide bloom

The slant it places away from phyto and toward bacteria is not good for the system.

(I'd stick with vinegar if I were going to dose carbon, BTW.....but I would not dose carbon in this situation.)

 

[Peng]

OK it may sound noobish but what nitrogenous sources would you recommend if NO3 is extremely low? Also, what is ULNS?

I would recommend a reduction in vodka dosing. Dose less and see if NO3 would rebounce if it doesn't then stop the vodka dosing. Normally you can feed more and add a few fish to increase NO3. A healthy amount is 0.5 - 5 ppm. Some people go lower but with added risks and they need to be very attentive to make sure NO3 doesn't slide. People who run ULNS (ultra low nutrient system) keep their NO3 and PO4 undetectable by typical hobbyist test kits (but still above zero), which is that NO3 and PO4 are in surface ocean water (nutrient rich but at constant low level because of fast consumption). In ULNS feeding is necessary. For example, people who run zeovit system need to shake their reactor to release bacteria to feed the corals and dose food daily such as amino acids and powder foods.

 

[mcarroll]

OK so in short short, corals need a low level of nitrates to effectively photosynthesize and produce energy?

It's more accurate to say they need a consistent source. Disturbance-free, if possible.

"Low" in incorrect....or at least incomplete as a strategy.

"Low" is definitely not ideal....if anything it's difficult. Medium or high nutrients would be much easier.

Awesome stony coral reefs are not only found in "ULNS" settings in the wild.

 

[Reefbuds]

OK so really the key is stability. I had a hammer coral head recently die on me for unknown reasona, this caused the nitrate spike which cause the vodka dosing which caused the 0ppm nitrates. So really, I should resume my normal reef keeping behavior?

 

[mcarroll]

OK so really the key is stability.

Stability really is key.

It's an understatement to say that corals are adaptable. But they take time to adapt, and their capacity is not unlimited.

So as long as you provide decent, stable reef conditions, the exactitudes aren't going to matter – corals will adapt.

But if you disrupt that stability with nutrient spikes or nutrient starvation periods, then you're re-rolling the dice. Not all corals re-adapt equally well or equally fast....and larger corals seem to have a MUCH harder time with some adaptations, so stability becomes more important as time goes on and corals grow up.

I had a hammer coral head recently die on me for unknown reasona, this caused the nitrate spike which cause the vodka dosing which caused the 0ppm nitrates. So really, I should resume my normal reef keeping behavior?

Well....how have your PO4 levels been lately? Kidding!!! But we need that info to give the best answer. Get that test kit, or get a sample tested at the LFS.

0.00 ppm of PO4 could easily be your "unknown reason"....and after the fact a NO3-spike is likely to generate a PO4-crash even if you had low levels available.

And I shouldn't jone too hard on ULNS...maintaining one perpetually is problematic, but it's not as simple as I made it out when I joked.

Med and high nutrients are easier to keep in most respects so they really are better for home reefs in almost all cases. And in fact, a tank full of fish where you're dumping cubes of food in every day is never ever going to be a truly low nutrient system. (note the lower case) That would be an oxymoron and a paradox. But higher nutrient systems are also less resilient and more crash or bleach prone in some ways (links on blog)....so moderation and control for stability are still called for in almost all cases. If there's any remaining attachment to the low nutrient thing as an idea, then look at the most stable and mature systems out there (@Paul B comes to mind; there are many others) – nutrient levels, even off the charts in some cases, just don't seem to matter at all. Those systems are balanced by heavy duty N- P- and C-cycling in the microbial loop.....often boosted by some dedicated micro- or macro-algae farming efforts.

 

[N4sty T4te]

You do need some No3 in your tank, usually @5 ppm. It depends on how your corals are looking. If they are pale and have no color to them then I would get more No3 in my tank. I use KNo3 to raise mine to 4-5 ppm. I would keep the Po4 as low as possible,

adding too what salty said... Po4 at 0 ppm is significantly more detrimental than No3 at 0 ppm. Once a coral has Po4 damage it wont go back to normal, only add new growth. Po4 between .01 and .05 is ideal.

 

[Mindi]

the fact that our testing shows zero NO3 doesn't mean you don't have any... it could mean it is fully consumed by tank demand before you "see" it. I can run at apparent zero NO3 and PO4 and still see some algal growth which presumably could not happen if the zeros were really "true"

 

[mcarroll]

the fact that our testing shows zero NO3 doesn't mean you don't have any.

Good point and very true in lots of cases.

But whether we're talking about NO3 or PO4, the idea of "zero nutrients" being desirable seems to have taken a deep hold on how folks start new tanks.

New tanks that have been held at "0 ppm" on NO3 or PO4 are mostly the ones that seem to be at risk of having problems.

 

[Reefbuds]

For the longest time I was under the impression that nitrates should be non existent. Only recently did I come upon the fact that this is not true.