I am trying to see nitrates ....

[manilaboy1vic]

I actually a little worried..... i recently deleted my sandbed and got rid of a kole tang in a 68g tank.

the month of May was full on tank maint month.. cleaned everything.. all pumps clean and running full bore.. probably did 50% W/C in the month of May.

the reason for the sandbed delete was cyano.. no GHA, just cyano on the sand and then eventually on the rocks.. and on the rocks mid level.. tank been going for 3 yrs now.. ive always run gfo/carbon.. and skim.. no socks, or bio balls or anyting else.. skim/carbon/gfo

and dose two part

never really dealt with a full on aggressive algae issue.. GFO running..

i attribute the cyano to kole tang poop and non sand bed cleaning.. pre sand bed delete, i didnt test.. the sandbed was such an eyesore, it needed to be out of my life.. so its gone....

so its 6/1 now.. a month of NO sandbed..

my nitrates and phos are undetectable.. and ive been feeding heavy, im my terms....

in the sandbed days, i would do one full squeeze of a coral feeder baster thing (mysis and brine) a day for 1 maroon and 1 kole..

now im doing two full baster squeezes with like cyclops/mysis/brine/coral frenzy blah.... im trying to get my old zoas happy again.. feeding phyto/zoo plankton, etc..

ive also added other fish.. 1 LMB 1 damsel 1 wrasse 1 dwarf angel

also another noteworthy change is... i am now running purigen instead of carbon..

i dont have a baseline of my phos/nitrates pre sandbed delete.. .. but corals survived as well as a clam and BTA

i actually thinking of taking the reactors offline to see if i can at least register on the testkits for nitrate and phos..

i use hanna for phos

API for trates

Theres still some cyano on rocks.. actually.. like in place that i would normally not be able to blow off clean..

am i low nutriet? do i need to offline the gfo/carbon/purigen/skimmer?

i recently dialed in my tank flow.. as well.. keeping everything suspensded.. two gyres.. one vert one horiz. opposing each other..

for example zoas that i put in there in the beginning look bad.. they need nitrates and phos.. do they look bad because im always running gac/gfo.. there is so much to contemplate

 

[mcarroll]

If you're trying to get nutrients "up to normal" then I'd take all filtration offline except for skimming (which is really aeration more than filtration) and let the system run in like that for a while.

There's also nothing wrong with dosing some phosphate and nitrate in the short term. Remember that PO4 is the real priority though...there's very little of it available vs nitrogen (considering all forms) to begin with. If you dose nitrates in a tank with nill phosphates, the corals will literally explode. (Not really, but it's bad...supercharges the dino's and photosynthesis while the coral has no PO4 to facilitate it or repair from it.)

 

[BoomCorals]

Personally I’d stop running GFO. Switch to a fuge or ATS.

 

[manilaboy1vic]

I'll offline the media and up the concentrated phytoplankton dose