Help with nitrates

Podworski08 · Dec 20, 2019

Okay so I’ve had my Red Sea 170 up and running for almost 9 months now. I feel that it should be pretty well cycled by now, right? So the last two to three months I’ve been struggling to keep nitrates down. I also have some red algae because of it. My corals look dull and some of them have minor tissue loss. Every other parameter is spot on. I know it’s my nitrates that are hurting my corals. I do weekly water changes with RODI and Red Sea Coral Pro Salt. I have even tried to do biweekly water changes. I dose Red Sea NOPOX. I have an oversized skimmer that is pulling dark skimmate. I run carbon in a media bag that I change out every two weeks and I also have a 8x8 marine pure bio plate in the sump. I have two davinci clowns that I feed 3 times a week (if I could feed them less I would). I’m at a loss of words and ideas on what to do next. If I let this go on any longer I know I will eventually lose all my corals and inverts. Please help me troubleshoot.

Salinity 1.025
Temp 77.8°
Ph 8.0
Mag 1400
Cal 480
Alk (I don’t have a test kit yet but last time I went to the LFS it tested at 8.1)
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
NITRATE 20ppm! (After recent water change)
Phosphate 0

Quietman · Dec 20, 2019

I have same setup. RSR170, Big skimmer and NoPoX. I feed daily...maintain about 3-5 ppm nitrate, <.05 ppm phosphate. What's your NoPox daily dose?

Samina · Dec 20, 2019

What are you testing phosphate with?

Nitrate at 20ppm really is not terrible. Plenty of systems run at that or higher, especially for LPS and softies. Your corals may look dull because they maybe starving. 0 on PO4 is not a good thing. A lot of bad things happen in those types of situations. I would cutback on NoPox a bit and would feed more (preferably pellets as they have more PO4) to get PO4 up and that will help lower NO3 by helping uptake. Wait a week and test and see how things look and further cutback NoPox.

Quietman · Dec 20, 2019

Oh and 20 ppm isn't that bad...was there a few months ago. I had 0 nitrate and phosphate and was causing issues, reduced my NoPoX a bit too much and overshot. Had to tweak a bit, how much food, how much NoPox, Skimmer speed (dc) but just change one thing at a time, test and adjust the next until you get it dialed in. Took a couple weeks and now I can again maintain my nitrates by adjusting NoPox dosing weekly between 2 ml when at low end and 3 ml when on the high end.

Podworski08 · Dec 20, 2019

Quietman said:
I have same setup. RSR170, Big skimmer and NoPoX. I feed daily...maintain about 3-5 ppm nitrate, <.05 ppm phosphate. What's your NoPox daily dose?

I dose 3mil and day

Podworski08 · Dec 20, 2019

Samina said:
What are you testing phosphate with?

Nitrate at 20ppm really is not terrible. Plenty of systems run at that or higher, especially for LPS and softies. Your corals may look dull because they maybe starving. 0 on PO4 is not a good thing. A lot of bad things happen in those types of situations. I would cutback on NoPox a bit and would feed more (preferably pellets as they have more PO4) to get PO4 up and that will help lower NO3 by helping uptake. Wait a week and test and see how things look and further cutback NoPox.

All my test kits are Giesemann Pro. I also feed RS Coral nutrition two three times a week and once a week I’ll broadcast feed reef roids. I know I’m not supposed to have 0 nitrate but I would like it in the 5ppm range.

Quietman · Dec 20, 2019

Podworski08 said:
I dose 3mil and day

So for example, try 4 ml for a week...see what happens. Agree with @Samina you don't want 0 phosphates. So after a week if nitrates dropping, maybe add more food, or a higher phosphate food or maybe run skimmer a bit wetter, wait another week. I find with NoPoX (and probably true with all carbon dosing) it's very, very easy to overshoot targets and you end up getting very frustrated. I like to try and do little bumps to move the needle and let it coast to steady state (that's why I wait a week) before adjusting something else. I was originally feeding twice a day...stopped that early on using same method I just covered...tweaking, always tweaking slowly.

Ling_Thing · Dec 20, 2019

If your nitrate is high and not coming down your either carbon or p04 limited or both. When I dose n03 my p04 goes down, when I dose p04 my n03 does down, my system has never been carbon limited and I don’t carbon dose either. I would check to see if your limited in those 2. All 3 are needed for bacteria to consume and digest.

Podworski08 · Dec 20, 2019

Okay. So maybe it’s not the nitrates that are causing oral discoloring. So what you guys are saying is that my phosphates being 0 is the cause of that and the nitrates being a little high shouldn’t be that big a deal. So I’ll feed more to try and increase phosphates while still working to keep the nitrates down?

Ling_Thing · Dec 20, 2019

Podworski08 said:
Okay. So maybe it’s not the nitrates that are causing oral discoloring. So what you guys are saying is that my phosphates being 0 is the cause of that and the nitrates being a little high shouldn’t be that big a deal. So I’ll feed more to try and increase phosphates while still working to keep the nitrates down?

Instead of over feeding and polluting your tank with extra organic waste just dose neophos directly it’s more precise and better for the tank imo.