How to raise my nutrients?

[TangerineSpeedo]

Tank is a 40g cube. Mixed reef about 50/50 SPS/LPS. I feed flake and pellets and live Phyto in the morning, defrosted frozen and live Phyto in the afternoon. I also dose RedSea AB+ about 3mils a day. In the morning I do 2 pumps of TM Plus NP which is the max dose.
PO4 and NO3 is 0.0 via Hannah. I did get it to .03 last week and I shut down my roller mat for a week. I was hoping it would surge when I did that, no such luck.
My corals do have growth and there is a bit of hair algae here and there, and no dinos or cyano, so it is not like there is no nutrients, they are just being used up quickly.
Anybody have any luck with some other way to add nutrients to their system?

 

[blaxsun]

Moar food...

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

Moar food...

Dude... I also forgot to mention, also two sheets of nori... for 7 fish and 3 shrimp and CUC
I don't want to pollute my tank... lol...

 

[Idech]

How old is your tank ?

 

[musel101]

Tank is a 40g cube. Mixed reef about 50/50 SPS/LPS. I feed flake and pellets and live Phyto in the morning, defrosted frozen and live Phyto in the afternoon. I also dose RedSea AB+ about 3mils a day. In the morning I do 2 pumps of TM Plus NP which is the max dose.
PO4 and NO3 is 0.0 via Hannah. I did get it to .03 last week and I shut down my roller mat for a week. I was hoping it would surge when I did that, no such luck.
My corals do have growth and there is a bit of hair algae here and there, and no dinos or cyano, so it is not like there is no nutrients, they are just being used up quickly.
Anybody have any luck with some other way to add nutrients to their system?

Hold off on water changes the razor nutrients

 

[ElementReefer]

Are you trying to raise your nutrients for a particular reason?

Nitrate and phosphate are simply testable indicators of overall water quality. You may have a strong population of bacteria that are eating those basic nutrients. Coral actually prefer ammonia for their nitrogen and bacteria-bound phosphate for their phosphorous.

It is even debatable whether “zero nutrients” actually cause dinos. An alternative theory is that a the rapid drop in some tanks’ nutrients is a sign of some microbial disruption that coincidentally leads to dinos/cyano.

 

[Salty_Northerner]

I was in the same boat. Bottomed out nitrate and phosphate.. like z e r o!! Used plus NP and nadda. So added Neophos and flourish nitrogen. I'm up to now .. nitrate 2.1 and phosphate .05 and tomorrow will start dosing NP Ballance see how it goes for the next week.

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

How old is your tank ?

The tank is coming up on a year. It doesn’t act like it though, everything is exploding! I have to play "who is going to war this week" Gone are the days when water changes and a bit of kalk and AFR was enough.

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

I was in the same boat. Bottomed out nitrate and phosphate.. like z e r o!! Used plus NP and nadda. So added Neophos and flourish nitrogen. I'm up to now .. nitrate 2.1 and phosphate .05 and tomorrow will start dosing NP Ballance see how it goes for the next week.

I know the Plus was working because I did get up to .03 but then watched the corals have a growth spurt and that put me to 0.0 again. looks like Neophos might be a winner. did you continue with the Plus NP while you dosed the brightwell?

 

[Hurricane Aquatics]

NeoPhos and NeoNitro are my preference and extremely good.

Careful and go slowly, it's easy to add, but not so easy to lower when it comes to phosphates.

New artificial rock or other additions can cause a lack of nutrients. Coral growth as well.

Adjust your Red Sea ReefMat to advance a little less in inches. Also, maybe out your skimmer on 12 hours on, 12 hours off.

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

Are you trying to raise your nutrients for a particular reason?

Nitrate and phosphate are simply testable indicators of overall water quality. You may have a strong population of bacteria that are eating those basic nutrients. Coral actually prefer ammonia for their nitrogen and bacteria-bound phosphate for their phosphorous.

It is even debatable whether “zero nutrients” actually cause dinos. An alternative theory is that a the rapid drop in some tanks’ nutrients is a sign of some microbial disruption that coincidentally leads to dinos/cyano.

Because the exact reason you indicated, I really just want to get my nutrients into a detectable range. Right now, my system is exporting faster than I am putting in. I am not worried about dinos/cyanos.
Can I just pee in my tank....

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

NeoPhos and NeoNitro are my preference and extremely good.

Careful and go slowly, it's easy to add, but not so easy to lower when it comes to phosphates.

New artificial rock or other additions can cause a lack of nutrients. Coral growth as well.

Adjust your Red Sea ReefMat to advance a little less in inches. Also, maybe out your skimmer on 12 hours on, 12 hours off.

My roller mat ran out of TP last week... I haven’t put a new roll in yet. I have my skimmer set for dark.
I mean the tank physically looks better/happier every day, but as of this afternoon 0.0
If I get detectable nutrients I feel it will be even better.

 

[Hurricane Aquatics]

My roller mat ran out of TP last week... I haven’t put a new roll in yet. I have my skimmer set for dark.
I mean the tank physically looks better/happier every day, but as of this afternoon 0.0
If I get detectable nutrients I feel it will be even better.

Contrary to popular belief, 0 nutrients will absolutely produce Dinoflagelates. You'll want your Nitrates around 12 or so and your phosphates around 0.03 to 0.10 on the upper end. Take it slow and let them build.

About 5ml a day of NeoNitro and NeoPhos will bring it up slowly. Just measure daily and see whrer you are them you can see how much you're consuming daily.

 

[Salty_Northerner]

I know the Plus was working because I did get up to .03 but then watched the corals have a growth spurt and that put me to 0.0 again. looks like Neophos might be a winner. did you continue with the Plus NP while you dosed the brightwell?

No I did not. I raised the phosphate and nitrate then carried on today with the balance. Hopefully it holds up.

 

[Salty_Northerner]

Contrary to popular belief, 0 nutrients will absolutely produce Dinoflagelates. You'll want your Nitrates around 12 or so and your phosphates around 0.03 to 0.10 on the upper end. Take it slow and let them build.

About 5ml a day of NeoNitro and NeoPhos will bring it up slowly. Just measure daily and see whrer you are them you can see how much you're consuming daily.

Yup that's what happened to me. Bottomed out and now the dinos are on the sand bed.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I’d feed more or dose, but I’m not a fan of either neonitro or neophos. They are expensive, dilute, and of unknown composition/purity.

Food grade sodium or calcium nitrate and sodium phosphate are my recommendation. You can get them from Amazon or Loudwolf.

 

[Salty_Northerner]

I’d feed more or dose, but I’m not a fan of either neonitro or neophos. They are expensive, dilute, and if unknown composition/purity.

Food grade sodium or calcium nitrate and sodium phosphate are my recommendation. You can get them from Amazon or Loudwolf.

Honestly I had a harder time trying to decipher what additive to get on Amazon as there was so much to choose from, probably it's an Amazon dot ca issue. Anyways that led me to another question, if I go and buy your suggested off Amazon how much do I dose?

I'd sooner spend the $10 on a bottle of Neophos and pretty much be guaranteed on what I dose is what I'm going to see after testing.

It's easy for a chemist to suggest to people on what to buy, but yet didn't include any dosing instructions. And please don't think Im attacking you, I'm just voicing my opinion. If I had to guess I'd say there's about 10% if that of the community has a firm grasp on Reef chemistry, and the rest of us are basically trying to weed out and find the correct information. Out of a couple of your same responses the only thing I was able to decipher and find a product that had proper dosing instructions was ESV that states it uses calcium nitrate so that was a win for me and a thank you for you.

I do personally thank you for posting but, is there a possibility you could just add a little bit more detail? Myself I tend to read pages upon pages and trying to decipher a lot of it is like handing a person a box of chemicals and tell them to create xyz but yet there's no instructions in the box :/

 

[Salty_Northerner]

@Randy Holmes-Farley
Sorry I couldn't find your original post about using TM NP plus or purity .Here is what's in the product after asking Hans Werner

It is 246 mmol/l N and 35 mmol/l P in pharmaceutical grade organic solution. For most user these data will not help much since they are not used to handle and calculate with mol.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

@Randy Holmes-Farley
Sorry I couldn't find your original post about using TM NP plus or purity .Here is what's in the product after asking Hans Werner

It is 246 mmol/l N and 35 mmol/l P in pharmaceutical grade organic solution. For most user these data will not help much since they are not used to handle and calculate with mol.

I don't recall saying anything about TM plus purity, but perhaps I did.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Honestly I had a harder time trying to decipher what additive to get on Amazon as there was so much to choose from, probably it's an Amazon dot ca issue. Anyways that led me to another question, if I go and buy your suggested off Amazon how much do I dose?

I'd sooner spend the $10 on a bottle of Neophos and pretty much be guaranteed on what I dose is what I'm going to see after testing.

It's easy for a chemist to suggest to people on what to buy, but yet didn't include any dosing instructions. And please don't think Im attacking you, I'm just voicing my opinion. If I had to guess I'd say there's about 10% if that of the community has a firm grasp on Reef chemistry, and the rest of us are basically trying to weed out and find the correct information. Out of a couple of your same responses the only thing I was able to decipher and find a product that had proper dosing instructions was ESV that states it uses calcium nitrate so that was a win for me and a thank you for you.

I do personally thank you for posting but, is there a possibility you could just add a little bit more detail? Myself I tend to read pages upon pages and trying to decipher a lot of it is like handing a person a box of chemicals and tell them to create xyz but yet there's no instructions in the box :/

If you search on food grade sodium or calcium nitrate, the choices are limited. In canada, I do not know what you find, if anything. Food grade sodium phosphate should be easy to get anywhere.

Here are some examples:



Use this calculator and the entry for nitrate from potassium nitrate or phosphate from potassium phosphate, and it will be close enough for our purposes.

James' Planted Tank - Dosing Calculator