How to increase Nitrates and Phosphate?

[Reef Devils]

My nitrate and phosphate are 0. I know that you could feed more and turn filtration off and that will make it go up but is there something that I can dose to raise it?

 

[LagoonReefLife]

I would feed some coral foods and test regularly. Increase the food amount as needed. Just go slow and don’t over do it or you may find an algae bloom.

 

[Reef Devils]

I would feed some coral foods and test regularly. Increase the food amount as needed. Just go slow and don’t over do it or you may find an algae bloom.

Can’t you buy something that you can dose to the tank and it will increase that?

 

[CoralB]

My nitrate and phosphate are 0. I know that you could feed more and turn filtration off and that will make it go up but is there something that I can dose to raise it?

Brightwell makes a product called Neophos and a product called neoNitro

 

[Reef Devils]

Brightwell makes a product called Neophos and a product called neoNitro

So I just tested nitrate and it wa 2.9 and phosphate was 0.0. Do you think I should dose some of that stuff?

 

[Pistondog]

Feed reef roids 2 or 3 times a week. They are mostly phosphate.

 

[LagoonReefLife]

Can’t you buy something that you can dose to the tank and it will increase that?

Sure, but why would you want that? Brightwell NeoNitrate is just inorganic nirate (someone correct me if I’m wrong) and doesn’t give your corals a chance to capture prey items. Also it’s about the same price or cheaper to feed coral food.

 

[Reef Devils]

Feed reef roids 2 or 3 times a week. They are mostly phosphate.

What are reef roids and which do you recommend?

 

[Reef Devils]

Sure, but why would you want that? Brightwell NeoNitrate is just inorganic nirate (someone correct me if I’m wrong) and doesn’t give your corals a chance to capture prey items. Also it’s about the same price or cheaper to feed coral food.

I was looking on BRS and they have this Nitrate and phosphate + that looks good. It feeds corals, helps with algae, and adds nitrate and phosphate.

 

[Pistondog]

What are reef roids and which do you recommend?

Reef-Roids

Reef-Roids is a blend of naturally occurring marine planktons, which contains a species of zooplankton that is unique to our product. Go pro with Reef-Roids!

www.polyplab.com

 

[Lavey29]

I had to double dose neophos and neonitro for multiple months before I got measurable numbers when my tank was young.

 

[CoralB]

So I just tested nitrate and it wa 2.9 and phosphate was 0.0. Do you think I should dose some of that stuff?

It is one way to help but feeding reef roids raises phosphates for me . as far as nitrates I like to keep mine between 15-20 ppm . Not knowing how big your tank is adding more fish can help with the idea of more fish , more food , more poop , more nitrates .

 

[Dburr1014]

My nitrate and phosphate are 0. I know that you could feed more and turn filtration off and that will make it go up but is there something that I can dose to raise it?

Fish food is the more natural way to add no3/po4. (nitrate/phosphate)
Reef roids add po4.
Be very careful having no3 reading and po4 at zero. It really messed things up. It's always better to start raising po4 first.

How often are you feeding? If you feed throughout the day, most likely you have the building blocks for no3 already. (ammonium)

 

[MabuyaQ]

So I just tested nitrate and it wa 2.9 and phosphate was 0.0. Do you think I should dose some of that stuff?

How long have you been at these levels and what is wrong with your animals, tank that makes you feel you need to change these levels.

 

[Reef Devils]

How long have you been at these levels and what is wrong with your animals, tank that makes you feel you need to change these levels.

Phosphate has always been 0. Nitrates have goon up from 0 to 2.9 in about a month. Everyone is telling me that I could get Dino’s because of this and my corals are starving with this low number.

 

[MabuyaQ]

Phosphate has always been 0. Nitrates have goon up from 0 to 2.9 in about a month. Everyone is telling me that I could get Dino’s because of this and my corals are starving with this low number.

Everything we test in the water is the endresult of input and output. And there is always the question of testing error and test accuracy in the background, so 0 is never really 0 even with ICP.

So if your animals are doing great there is no real reason to change anything there is enough nitrate to fulfill their needs. Not knowing how your phosphate was tested, I am still certain it is not zero.

Concerning the risk of dino's low phosphate is not the problem, low nitrate is. So having an increase in nitrate already lowered the risk of a dino outbreak. In my experience the golden ratio between nitrates and (ortho)phosphate is 100:1 as this lowers the risk of an algae/dino/cyano outbreak. Because of testkit accuracy (mostly for phosphate) and work it takes to keep these levels stable the lower they are, I prefer to keep my nitrate around 5 and phosphate around 0,05 . More important though to prevent an outbreak of dino's is not to blast your sand and rock with sps parlevels. You need to blast corals with that kind of light, so if there isn't a lot of coral coverage, dimm the lights. And if you do see some dino's (dimm the lights, make sure nitrates and phosphate stay in the right ratio) start doing ICP tests (weekly at the start) and check your iodine, fluoride, bromine and especially molybdenum levels.

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

Let me send you some of the water from my tank

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

My nitrate and phosphate are 0. I know that you could feed more and turn filtration off and that will make it go up but is there something that I can dose to raise it?

It is easy and inexpensive to dose food grade sodium phospahte and sodium or calcium nitrate.

Do not be misled into dosing potassium nitrate in any form, especially not stump remover of unknown purity.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Concerning the risk of dino's low phosphate is not the problem, low nitrate is. So having an increase in nitrate already lowered the risk of a dino outbreak. In my experience the golden ratio between nitrates and (ortho)phosphate is 100:1 as this lowers the risk of an algae/dino/cyano outbreak.

Different folks have different opinions on that issue. Some finger only phosphate. Some refer to both. No clear tests prove the case either way.

IMO, since you do not really want either to be zero, just keeping both at an appropriate level seems hard to argue against.

I'm also not a fan of using ratios as target levels as I think it has no advantage over just maintaining appropriate absolute levels, and clearly has the potential to mislead reefers with both too high or both too low, but still at your golden ratio.

 

[jabberwock]

Can’t you buy something that you can dose to the tank and it will increase that?

IMHO, this is the wrong line of thought. Magic fixes and super additives are typically only good for reducing your bank account. Feeding more is the best option. Reef Roids is a good choice for that. Follow the instructions, but do a little less than it says to start with to see how much of an impact they make.