how many dose for nitrates

jda · Apr 11, 2018

I have been down this path with 100+ reefers and the answer is always lights for SPS. Definitely not needed for the LPS. I have no idea which are more important to you. As you go along your journey, just keep the lights in the back of your mind. If you truly are wanting the acros to go the next level, then you will get there.

Many folks who go back to things that they did years ago see them in a new light. Sorry for the pun. You are a better reefer now and can see more detail and nuance. You can find all kinds of posts from people who put T5s and MH back on their tank and they post about how the forgot how good they were - they did not forget, they just have a wider basis for comparison now.

If you are ever near Boulder, I can show you a tank with .1 nitrate and .01 phosphate under Metal Halides that has more color than anything under LED. Schnitzel had similar experience. Tom (tbd320reef) on RC. Both documented their journeys along the way including a staunch attitude that the lights were not the problem... only to have everything that they wanted when they finally changed them.

Anyway... take this for what it is worth... I am just trying to help and always want people to have the best acros possible. I will bow out if you have no interest.

jeffyhound · Apr 11, 2018

Thank you JDA. I appreciate your time, and I will definitely keep lights in mind. I have my halides, so changing is easy. I think I might fire them back up over my QT tank and take a look. It can't hurt, and honestly, I have changed a lot since I used them. Perhaps those are the missing piece. Right now, I just don't know.

cracker · Apr 11, 2018

Dosing for No3& Po4 is ok. Just be careful it's real easy to go too far then the algae comes.

jeffyhound · Apr 11, 2018

excuse the awful pic. this is my QT. my parents bought this 55 for me in 1977. I have done marine systems every since. it is very scratched up and I cant get the glass real clear because algae grows in the scratches and I can't get it clean. I ordered a pack from Jason Fox and another from Vivid. I have some nice frags here. I think my next step is to try my MH over it to see what happens. Meanwhile I can continue with adding fish to the main system to see if I can show some nitrates. Thanks everyone for the information. if anyone else has anything just say something. I appreciate the thoughts everyone has provided.

AquamanE · Apr 11, 2018

I agree with the light comment. Sorry

jeffyhound · Apr 11, 2018

You all really think LED's are that far off?

BigJohnny · Apr 11, 2018

jeffyhound said:
OK, I have tried feeding heavier, shutting down skimmer, and I have zero nitrates. Picking up the feeding seems to raise PO4 instead of nitrates. I just wonder who else is running into this?

have you tried adding fish?

jeffyhound · Apr 11, 2018

I have 3 more fish in QT right now.

BigJohnny · Apr 11, 2018

jeffyhound said:
I have 3 more fish in QT right now.

I also just saw something that really concerned me. you just said you dose your tank to match your salt, that you run your tank at 11.6 dkh, but you use hw-marinemix reefer. Hw-marinemix reefer doesnt run anywhere near 11.6. So either i misunderstood your statement, your method of testing alkalinity is way off, or your method of testing salinity is way off. I think i probably misunderstood you because IMO you would likely be having much more serious problems if the other two were true, but maybe not.

DesertReefT4r · Apr 11, 2018

The pics you posted look to have what I would consider lower PAR. It is hard to judge a pic but they look fairly dim to me. You frag tank looks all blue. For me MH is a must on for sps, call me old school. LED is a great light and ther are some awesome options out there, Maxspect not being on my list as a good sps LED light. If you research you will find that most people who are running LED and have great success with sps supplement with T5 or use the LED to supplement MH. Most tanks I see running only LED have slower growth and or some sps just dont do well. There are exceptions out there, some run multiple LED lights to increase coverage and increase performance. I know of a local 90g 36x24x24" sps tank and it runs 2 Gen 4 XR30 Pro fixtures at 80% with the AB coral program. Tank tank and a few other I have seen do grow most sps well.
So I am anyways I am saying OP's is lighting as well. Can you get a PAR reading where your sps are?

ZaneTer · Apr 12, 2018

@jeffyhound
Do what you need to do to get detectable nitrates. You know that the vast majority of people with undetectable nitrates have problems along the way. To increase nitrates is extremely cheap. There are many dosing calculators you can use and order the raw ingredients from amazon.

Lighting could be your issue. It is quite possible. If you can’t grow properly under T5 or MH then lighting really isn’t your problem.

One final bit of advice, try to get your water ICP tested. It’s alwasy nice to know what your water contains.

TexasTodd · Apr 12, 2018

Can you show some close up pics of corals in the different tanks? Most complain of pale colors in low nutrient tanks.....pic of frags doesn't look pale to me.

jda · Apr 12, 2018

Sure. Add the fish. I love fish and have a lot of them. I do think that any nitrate jump will be short lived until your tank adjusts. Make sure that your fish do not drive your P levels up too high. You can probably reach a point where adding nitrate might keep the level higher to where you can read it, but you might be adding a massive amount every day.

Do you truly understand what is consuming your nitrate and why you cannot detect it? If so, then you will see that there is no harm in adding more fish, but also that it will not likely raise the level either after your tank adjusts to the new equilibrium.

I can assure that this is absolutely no issue. If you are not carbon dosing, or otherwise artificially stripping the N, then there will always be enough to be a building block for the corals. Chaeto cannot drive it to true-zero - there always has to be some to drive the equilibrium. Anoxic bacteria cannot drive it to true-zero - there always has to be some to drive the equilibrium.

If you do not like the colors in a low-N tank, the fine. Some people do not. ...but health and growth is not a problem. Some people have health and growth issues with low N and P, but this is not the real issue for them... it always has been something else. If you want the richer, deeper saturated colors, then higher N can give you this. The color is often less bright with less contrast. Some stuff gets greener with more N and P. To each their own.

Even if you did want higher N, I have no idea how you could do this by adding KNo3, or the like, since all that you will do is just grow more bacteria to eat it and the corals will get outcompeted just as they are now. Removing all/some of the algae seems more effective than dosing nitrate, IMO.

Give yourself a few months with a MH over those frags with a good ballast/bulb/reflector combo and you will not likely think about nitrate ever again. Phosphate can be a different story, but probably not for you if you keep using that algae.

TexasTodd · Apr 12, 2018

PICS! Corals don't look pale.

Big E · Apr 13, 2018

Adding more fish doesn't mean you will see a rise in N03 on a test kit, but there will be more nitrogen available to the corals in the form of ammonium and urea. The fish poop also creates a release of nutrients. None of this can show up on a test kit as the corals bacteria will take this in to feed the zoo.

It's why you seldom see people with large fish populations have trouble with corals being pale or nutrient starved. I would also suggest that most reefers are very stingy when it comes to feeding the fish as they are afraid of not being able to keep nutrient levels under control which is actually easy to do now.

The actual test numbers are just what is left over after the bacteria, corals and algae get their share. This is why you see people have success at different test numbers. Generally though, most tanks will fall into a ballpark range that is most conducive to corals thriving. That range is the area most people will target approx.----------P04- .03-.10, N03- .25-5.0.
That isn't written in stone, just where most tanks will be.

The ratio between the two can also have an effect yet that's a bit harder to target as to what it is.

The key is to have a high energy system (lots of nutrients in the cycle) with low numbers tested out to keep pest algae away as well as keeping high nutrient levels from being a detriment to coral growth and health.

An example of what I normally give is that a 100g tank with 3 fish & P04 at .03 will likely be less successful as that same 100g tank with 6 fish and the same Po4 of .03

This is a helpful link for a layman understanding---
http://www.yorku.ca/spk/fishbiol09/FB09lecture11.pdf

Forsaken77 · Apr 13, 2018

If you need Nitrates, come take some of my tank water. You'll be swimming in Nitrates.

Ashish Patel · Apr 13, 2018

If anyone wants to increase nitrate its pretty easy with flourish nitrogen. You dose a few cap fuls every 3 days and watch you nitrates go from .2 to 2ppm then 5ppm and then you stop dosing and it just stays there. Do I see much different in coral color? NO, Does it make me feel better? YES....Fantastic product

jeffyhound · Apr 13, 2018

I think what I am going to do is add the fish and see. There are some major successes in my tank, but I find other than green and purple, I struggle with things. I have made some changes though, and I don't want to do too much at once. Thanks everyone. I will keep you updated.