Dosing Nitrate and Phosphate while tank is running fallow

[SoCalVictor]

I had transferred all of my liverock and corals (sps, lps, softies) into a new 180g tank and am running it fallow because I had a velvet outbreak a few months back. Now my nitrate and phosphate levels are undetectable and wondering if I should start dosing nitrate and phosphate. I'm about a month away from being able to introduce fish. Some corals look ok but a few sps are starting to look pale. I also lost a couple of spsfrags but debatable what caused it.

If it's recommended to dose, what products should I use? Looking for something simple and short term as I expect my fish load to be enough in a few months.

thanks in advance!

 

[Spare time]

I would do that or just dose coral food. Don't forget to keep your clean up crew fed

 

[SoCalVictor]

Does uneaten coral food ultimately convert to nitrate/phosphate?

I was looking at these two products for nitrate and phosphate.
Seachem Flourish:

For Nitrate:

This item is unavailable - Etsy

Find the perfect handmade gift, vintage & on-trend clothes, unique jewelry, and more… lots more.

www.etsy.com

 

[Spare time]

Does uneaten coral food ultimately convert to nitrate/phosphate?

I was looking at these two products for nitrate and phosphate.
Seachem Flourish:

For Nitrate:

This item is unavailable - Etsy

Find the perfect handmade gift, vintage & on-trend clothes, unique jewelry, and more… lots more.

www.etsy.com

If the corals don't consume the food, it will break down into nitrate and phosphate. I have never seen someone use fluorish in a reef tank and I am not familiar with it so I can't comment on it.

 

[Jeff Jarry reef]

I used ATI -N and ATI- P and it worked great for me.

 

[0utworld]

Seachem flourish products have worked for me well when I had dinos blooms.

 

[SoCalVictor]

Thanks everyone. Starting to dose with Seachem flourish nitrogen and phosphorous.

 

[SoCalVictor]

Here's an update

After dosing with both products, the good news is that my sps responded well and seemed healthier.

However, I saw bryopsis popping up in various areas. I battled bryopsis in my previous tank and when I transferred over rock and sand over, I was careful not to transfer anything that had visible bryopsis. I also spot treated my frag plugs that had bryopsis with hydrogen peroxide. During my fallow period, around 2 months, I had some brown algae but no signs of the bryopsis.

So in my attempt to eradicate it I spot treated the bryopsis with hydrogen peroxide, directly in the tank using syringe. About 200ml (my system's total volume is 230g) I may have overdid it because over the course of next few days, a few of my sps bleached and some RTNed. On the other hand, the visible bryopsis that I treated, died away.

I dialed back the lighting and some of the bleached corals are showing signs of recovery. I'm guessing I had a nutrient crash. The corals continued to not look great so I slowly went back to dosing nitrate/phosphate and guess what, the bryopsis came back and with a vengeance. At this point, I've learned my lesson and am not doing any more with hydrogen peroxide but I'm now concerned the bryopsis will take over my tank.

Any thoughts or advice?

 

[Crustaceon]

I’ve used flourish nitrogen and phosphorous. Be careful with that stuff. It’s potent.

 

[hyprc]

Sure hope Randy chimes in as I might assume some ammonia dosing would be in order to maintain the chain of bacteria while the fish are out.

 

[Spare time]

Here's an update

After dosing with both products, the good news is that my sps responded well and seemed healthier.

However, I saw bryopsis popping up in various areas. I battled bryopsis in my previous tank and when I transferred over rock and sand over, I was careful not to transfer anything that had visible bryopsis. I also spot treated my frag plugs that had bryopsis with hydrogen peroxide. During my fallow period, around 2 months, I had some brown algae but no signs of the bryopsis.

So in my attempt to eradicate it I spot treated the bryopsis with hydrogen peroxide, directly in the tank using syringe. About 200ml (my system's total volume is 230g) I may have overdid it because over the course of next few days, a few of my sps bleached and some RTNed. On the other hand, the visible bryopsis that I treated, died away.

I dialed back the lighting and some of the bleached corals are showing signs of recovery. I'm guessing I had a nutrient crash. The corals continued to not look great so I slowly went back to dosing nitrate/phosphate and guess what, the bryopsis came back and with a vengeance. At this point, I've learned my lesson and am not doing any more with hydrogen peroxide but I'm now concerned the bryopsis will take over my tank.

Any thoughts or advice?

Use flux rx or similar fluconizole products. It works great on bryopsis and will wipe it out.

 

[SoCalVictor]

Just ordered fluconizole. I read as much as I could from the megathread about it. A few pockets of folks say they lost some corals. That has me a bit concerned...

 

[Sdot]

I used ATI -N and ATI- P and it worked great for me.

ive been using n..but i still cant get it to detectable levels...how much do you dose for your tank size? Also is it diluted?

 

[SoCalVictor]

It's possible your system is consuming it, algae or corals. I would be careful on overdosing because that's probably what happened to me and then trying to compensate/correct made stuff out of balance.

I started Flux RX 2 days ago. Some sps don't seem happy (e.g. polyp retraction). I lost a WD frag. The LPS and Mushrooms seem to be doing ok.

 

[Little_Red_Ryan_Hood]

I had transferred all of my liverock and corals (sps, lps, softies) into a new 180g tank and am running it fallow because I had a velvet outbreak a few months back. Now my nitrate and phosphate levels are undetectable and wondering if I should start dosing nitrate and phosphate. I'm about a month away from being able to introduce fish. Some corals look ok but a few sps are starting to look pale. I also lost a couple of spsfrags but debatable what caused it.

If it's recommended to dose, what products should I use? Looking for something simple and short term as I expect my fish load to be enough in a few months.

thanks in advance!

Check out Acroporium.com they have the best price you can find. High quality stuff as well.

 

[ScottB]

Just ordered fluconizole. I read as much as I could from the megathread about it. A few pockets of folks say they lost some corals. That has me a bit concerned...

Yeah, I posted to the mega thread too. My LFS uses it a couple times a month or so on serviced tanks. So he guesses a hundred doses over the last several years. I used it on one of the coral display tanks and it was awesome. No losses of SPS, LPS, zoas. Bryopsis was gone inside a week. Still gone. But inexplicably, once a year or so it blows up an SPS tank. I saw one with my own eyes. It was real bad and very fast -- within 24 hours.

Been combing that thread to try and pick up a pattern across the rare, but really "bad" outcomes. The only anecdotal thing that MAYBE contributes was that these systems had histories of high nutrient, but were low at the time of dosing Fluc. Maybe other treatments were tried before (Vibrant as one) and general nutrient reduction. Not enough data to build any conviction though.

Truth is, if you have bryopsis spread, you don't really have a choice beyond dosing Fluc or replacing the rock. Just keep a huge WC store in case and watch closely.

 

[SoCalVictor]

So far I've lost 3 sps frag...one every 24 hrs. My snails don't look too good...a lot of them have flipped over.

I'm also thinking that when the algae dies, the nutrient release makes the sps not happy.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Does uneaten coral food ultimately convert to nitrate/phosphate?

I was looking at these two products for nitrate and phosphate.
Seachem Flourish:

For Nitrate:

This item is unavailable - Etsy

Find the perfect handmade gift, vintage & on-trend clothes, unique jewelry, and more… lots more.

www.etsy.com

Eaten or uneaten food mostly ends of as dissolved nitrate and phosphate.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

So far I've lost 3 sps frag...one every 24 hrs. My snails don't look too good...a lot of them have flipped over.

I'm also thinking that when the algae dies, the nutrient release makes the sps not happy.

Or toxin release.

 

[SoCalVictor]

Thanks @Randy Holmes-Farley

Any way to mitigate the toxins without having to run carbon and thereby stripping out the flucanozole?