How do people run 0 Nitrate systems without issues?

[Ocean’s Piece]

So I was pondering this question recently after I got my first dino outbreak. For the first 10 months of the existence of my tank, I ran it with 0 Nitrates and had no problems (phosphates are a constant battle though). Things were growing and nothing was stressed from the lack of nitrates. Then, I decided to unplug my protein skimmer to raise my nitrates, and they did. But then, my nitrates bottomed out after I plugged it back in on a timer and now I have dinos. So it makes me wonder, how do people run these 0 Nitrate systems with little to no issues?

 

[AJsReef]

In my experience, if you are flirting with 0 nitrate or phosphate it’s important to continue to add nutrients through feeding. The two times I had Dino’s were when I accidentally truly bottomed out. Once was when I took a few days vacation and didn’t feed the other my N/P doser had an issue. At least that’s my hypothesis.

If you’re continually adding nutrients then all the things that compete with Dinos are kept happy and Dinos don’t take off.

 

[Spare time]

0 nitrate doesn't seem to be the dino issue as much as 0 phosphate does. 0 nitrate appears to favor a lot of cyano species though.

To run a 0 nitrate tank, you have to have heavy feeding or daily addition of things like amino acids. This is more or less how it works in the wild as corals feast on zooplankton constantly.

 

[Ocean’s Piece]

0 nitrate doesn't seem to be the dino issue as much as 0 phosphate does. 0 nitrate appears to favor a lot of cyano species though.

To run a 0 nitrate tank, you have to have heavy feeding or daily addition of things like amino acids. This is more or less how it works in the wild as corals feast on zooplankton constantly.

My phosphates are sitting at .05 as of a few days ago and never dropped below that. Kinda interested at what you said below though. I used to only feed pellet and flake food and pretty heavily too, so I wonder if that's how everything was kept in check.

 

[AJsReef]

Did you stop feeding pellets? Pellets are very dense in nutrients, a sudden stop could’ve bottomed you out temporarily and opened to door.

 

[Cell]

Perfect equilibrium.

 

[Ocean’s Piece]

Did you stop feeding pellets? Pellets are very dense in nutrients, a sudden stop could’ve bottomed you out temporarily and opened to door.

Started feeding LRS Reef Frenzy mainly. I still feed pellets and flakes, but 75% of the time it is LRS. I’ll start adding some pellets to my frozen to see if I can raise my nutrients.

 

[PatW]

I run very low nitrates and 0 phosphates. I feed a fair bit, I have chaeto and I usually dose nitrate and phosphate. As long as some nitrates and phosphates are flowing through the system, the corals are happy. The ocean waters often have really low nitrates and phosphates but the reefs get exposed to a fair amount of both because of the flow of water over them. Even low concentrations, still have nutrients. The thing is that in an aquarium, you can deplete the nutrients and that is a bad thing for your corals.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Many folks running low inorganic nutrient systems use different sources of N for corals and such, such as amino acids.