First shot at dosing nitrates

[rmurken]

So my reef tank seems to be nitrate-limited. My NO3 has always been undetectable, and my PO4 recently spiked 6x from .03 to about .17. I’m not surprised at the spike because I’ve been feeding heavily and skipped a WC to see if nitrate would come up on its own. It did not. (I have light stocking, low alk demand and generally good parameters, so no big deal to let it ride for two weeks.)

Running chaeto on a reverse light cycle.

I pulled out the old stump remover and weighed out enough to get NO3 up to 3ppm, and will test NO3 and PO4 tomorrow. My working hypothesis is that chaeto and other life will suck up virtually all the NO3, and take a bite out of the PO4. Will keep dosing until PO4 gets back to something like its usual level.

Will also watch my chaeto for growth over the holidays. I suspect the low NO3 means it can’t take up PO4. Same for the tank generally.

Funny, my freshwater tank has sky-high NO3 and looks to be severely PO4-limited. Maybe I can save water by adding my IO to old freshwater tank water. Maybe not.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

I am doing this right now as well. I have been dosing what I normally dose to get nitrates back to 1 ppm but it gets sucked up quick with the amount of vinegar I am dosing. My po4 has dropped a good amount finally after dosing for two weeks. I love using this method for reducing po4, nice and slow and easy to control.

 

[rmurken]

I am doing this right now as well. I have been dosing what I normally dose to get nitrates back to 1 ppm but it gets sucked up quick with the amount of vinegar I am dosing. My po4 has dropped a good amount finally after dosing for two weeks. I love using this method for reducing po4, nice and slow and easy to control.

Cool. Glad to hear someone else uses the approach already. First time trying it, and seems to be working. NO3 is on its way down and PO4 is down to .043 (from .17). Pretty quick, actually.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

Yea especially if carbon dosing and using an increased dose, you can bring down po4 with this method pretty quick but just bought to not worry about sps peeling from po4 drops.

 

[rmurken]

Yea especially if carbon dosing and using an increased dose, you can bring down po4 with this method pretty quick but just bought to not worry about sps peeling from po4 drops.

I don’t dose carbon since my bioload is pretty light. You have a more advanced and demanding setup than me, for sure. I’m not ready for SPS yet. I have some zoas and a chalice frag, bunch of rock, sand, 5 fish, and a cuc. Hard to believe but 18 months in I think that qualifies as “just getting started.” But this seems like a hobby where it never hurts to take your time.

It’s curious to me that in your tank the PO4 drops over the course of weeks and in mine it’s a day. I wonder if I just have a lower flux of organics. The other possibility is that my .17 PO4 reading was an error. I have no reason to think it was, but can’t be certain.