For the life of me...

[Acro]

I can not get any nitrates or phosphates into my tank!! I feed extremely heavy, here's my schedule ...

11:00 am (before lights on)
1 tablespoon oyster feast
5 drops coral vitalizer
2:00 pm
Big chunk of rods
4 ml reef energy A
4 ml reef energy B

10:00 pm
Fish pellets


My corals are looking okay but I know I can get more color if I had some nitrates in there. What can I do! ( also there is no algae whatsoever in my tank and the only thing that I do is use a skimmer)

 

[Acro]

Also 60 gallon tank

 

[StReNuOuS BiOmArKeR]

neo nitro and neo phos saved my butt

 

[StReNuOuS BiOmArKeR]

is it bare bottom....how many fish?

 

[minhvu]

Maybe cut your skimmer off for a few hours a day. A buddy of mine had the same problem, he change his skimmer to 12 on and 12 off. Started adding a little phosphate to his tank and his sps colored up better

 

[redfishbluefish]

More info needed.....

How old is the tank?
Are you running biopellets?
If not biopellets, are you running any other reactors? And what's in them?
Do you have a refugium?
What is your water change schedule?


Nitrates and Phosphates are a given.....you must have something else sucking them up. Just have to figure out what it is.

 

[Acro]

I do have a shallow sand bed, with 6 fish ( all medium to large).

As far as the skimmer goes I have tried that method as well and I even didn't do a water change for 20 days. Something is eating up the nitrates and phosphates but it isn't algae!

 

[Acro]

More info needed.....

How old is the tank?
Are you running biopellets?
If not biopellets, are you running any other reactors? And what's in them?
Do you have a refugium?
What is your water change schedule?


Nitrates and Phosphates are a given.....you must have something else sucking them up. Just have to figure out what it is.

1 year 3 months
No type of nutrient control or reactors
No refugium
I do a 5 gallon water change a week

 

[Pete polyp]

How many fish?
What brand of salt are you using?

 

[Acro]

How many fish?
What brand of salt are you using?

6 fish and I use ESV salt and parameters are in line with the salt mix

 

[Tahoe61]

Might try replacing the pellets with the Rod's and feed bigger chunks, give it a week or more. If there is a specific item the pellets is adding I am sure Rods has a brand that will cover that. The N/P is going to come up eventually.

 

[Acro]

I did just have my buddy test K and it's at 300. Should I try raising that up too?

 

[Addicting Corals]

you need more fish in my opinion but at some point in the future there might be too many and start to have to pull them out to get back in your idea range. you should really look into neo nitro and neo phos by brightwell
i dumped a 500 ml bottle into about 250 gal of water and in 2 days my nitrate went from 0 to 10 where i wanted it. problem is you need both to bring up both if you just use neo nitro sometimes your phos will diminish to zero and takes a bit to get it back up or vice versa.

 

[nikesb]

I struggled for a very long time with 0 phos/nitrates and feeding 3x a day plus adding some more fish worked for my 50 gallon

 

[Pete polyp]

I struggled to have any detectable nitrates for a while. I started feeding rods 5-8 times every day and coral frenzy or reef roids every night. After a couple weeks I brought it up to 2ppm, so I cut back on the rods to 2-4 times a day. I'm currently able to keep it 0.5-1ppm this way. Bringing the K up to where it should be might help also..... I can't say with any certainty it will though.

 

[Acro]

Honestly not too comfortable putting more fish in at this time, I've already added two in the last month and I'm not big on fish to be honest lol

The nitro and phos from brightwell, is it phosphate and nitrate in a bottle pretty much?

 

[Jimbo662]

How are you running your skimmer? are you having to empty it often?

 

[Acro]

How are you running your skimmer? are you having to empty it often?

I dry skim, i empty it once a month!