Difficulty raising nitrates

[Aquavaj]

I unintentionally let my nitrates bottom out using biopellets. I have stopped using it for about a month now Now I'm having trouble getting my nitrates back up. I feed 3x a day but doubled the amount fed and it still didn't budge. I tried dosing neo-nitrogen but dosing 15ml only brings it up 2-3ppm and drops back to zero within a day or 2. Am I going to need to dose everyday? I'd like to keep it at around 5ppm.

 

[Halal Hotdog]

I have noticed once people bottom out their nitrates they have a difficult time getting detectable numbers. I had a similar problem. I also find people having high nitrates have difficulty getting them down within a couple of months. I also had a similar problem with this. I feel what is happening is there are a certain amount of all nutrients that are being absorbed by rock and sand, which creates a perpetual ion exchange in the water. Once you get the water column to zero nitrates, the substrate is devoid of nitrates. The opposite is true of running high nitrates for an extended period of time. If you continue feeding heavily you will absolutely have detectable nitrates and phosphates, it is just a matter of surpassing the consumption of your tank as well as having enough bound in the substrate.

 

[SeaDweller]

Try skimming drier if you’re using a skimmer and removing your filter sock if using one.

Can you add more fish?

 

[ReeferReefer]

What are your nutrient export methods?

 

[jccaclimber]

I add KNO3 daily on a doser putting in 0.8 PPM NO3 per day. I’ve been putting in that much, or more, for at least the past 9 months, and it keeps me somewhere around 10 PPM. I travel a lot and last time I was home I noticed the coral looking a bit pale. Sure enough the KNO3 container had run dry for a week, maybe even two. My nitrate was a hard zero, after 10-15 days, from ~10 PPM, despite adding at least 300 PPM over the last year. Some tanks consume nitrate. Yours might be one of them. You can decrease your export or increase your input.