Low Nitrate High Phosphate

[Neko]

oh also sorry it's a 40gal nuvo aio

Low nitrate and high phosphate may happen in small tank with bare bottom. I had a same issue in my Reefer XL200 (total 53 gallon), and resolved by increasing biological filter in the sump while reducing skimming power. GFO helped to reduce phosphate but it should be slowly. I am using Nyos phosi-ex. It's slower than Rowaphos.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Hopefully the OP resolved this issue as his post was more than 3 years ago.

 

[NicolasToro]

Having same problem as the OP. 0.2 nitrates and 0.09 average phosphates. Tried feeding more and only phosphates go up and also nuisance appears. Just finished razor treatment because of bad GHA problem and its almost all gone but now i have green and red slime, mainly green.
Im a little lost because i can get all parameters in check but keep getting extremely low nitrates. Help please!!
mixed reef and corals doing ok except for cyphastreas, gonys and some acans. But i guess you cant make everyone happy.

 

[Reef.]

I have a melanarus, 2 clowns and goby that's all. I do feed frozen mysis and pellets but that's it and usually enough to get the full. They eat like 80% of what I put in.

and poo most of the po4 back out.

I believe frozen is good and experiments on not rinsing frozen has shown it to add next to no extra po4, so I don’t think it the food.

How are you testing po4? Sorry if you have already said.

 

[KrisReef]

Hopefully the OP resolved this issue as his post was more than 3 years ago.

I’m pretty certain that they will have changed directions by now. People who are enjoying their tank and have sweet parameters generally just sit down in front of the aquarium and take comfort in the balanced environment.
I’m not too sure what that is like but I’m going to do a water change to increase my nitrates before I measure anything. I like knowing what they are immediately afterwards.

 

[NicolasToro]

and poo most of the po4 back out.

I believe frozen is good and experiments on not rinsing frozen has shown it to add next to no extra po4, so I don’t think it the food.

How are you testing po4? Sorry if you have already said.

Think a brought back an old post and you are answering to the OP. Maybe i should have created a new one. Hopefully he figured it out.

 

[NicolasToro]

I’m pretty certain that they will have changed directions by now. People who are enjoying their tank and have sweet parameters generally just sit down in front of the aquarium and take comfort in the balanced environment.
I’m not too sure what that is like but I’m going to do a water change to increase my nitrates before I measure anything. I like knowing what they are immediately afterwards.

If you mean me, still trying to put this puzzle together.

 

[KrisReef]

If you mean me, still trying to put this puzzle together.

I was wondering how the thread resurrected. I don’t know how it turned out for the op?

My nitrates have been stable for awhile but my Phosphate went crazy high until I employed GFO to get it down to near zero. I also added a few chunks of fresh live rock from Australia and parameters have been much closer to a natural reef than an aquarium.
I have not measured Nitrates for a month but they were 5-10ppm the last few times I bothered with it.

 

[Cbones1979]

Having same issue

I’ve been constantly around .26 phosphates and 3 nitrates or lower.

I’ve lost almost all my acros, my torches, and a few hammer heads. The rest of the corals (montis, acans, Duncan’s) are thriving.

I have a large scrubber and I’ve been dosing nitrates to try to get them higher. I used phosguard a week ago but it didn’t change the phosphates at all even a week later.

I did an icp test two weeks ago and even that came back with phosphates high and nitrates low so I don’t think my Hanna testers are wrong.

I’m losing faith.

Also I’ve tested alk, salinity and temp daily and all are pretty steady at 9.0, 1.025, and 77.

Also I’ve been doing biweekly water changes.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I’d be very surprised in nitrate at 3 ppm and phosphate at 0.26 ppm is the cause of many coral deaths.

 

[Cbones1979]

I’d be very surprised in nitrate at 3 ppm and phosphate at 0.26 ppm is the cause of many coral deaths.

It’s confusing. Icp test came back ok except for some low trace elements.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

It’s confusing. Icp test came back ok except for some low trace elements.

IMO, finding the reason for coral loses by icp is unusual, not the norm.

 

[Cbones1979]

IMO, finding the reason for coral loses by icp is unusual, not the norm.

I was trying to rule out high metals or leaching metal.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I was trying to rule out high metals or leaching metal.

I understand. But of all of the folks doing that for that exact reason, most posting here do not find that metals or anything else indicated by the ICP is a clear cause.

 

[stalkem]

Well, since this is still active after resurrection, I'll throw in a question. I've got a BioCube29.

I had dosed Seachem Nitrogen and Phosphorus back in December to get them up to about 10ppm (NO3) and .3 ppm (PO4) while I was battling dinos. During the course of this battle, I also added a Coralife Turbo Twist on the return line and have been adding about 6mL of Microbacter7 daily (been continuing to do it until the bottle is finished). During the course of this, I started getting GHA, so I added an algae scrubber (running 18 hours a day), and have my Coralife protein skimmer running constantly. I also do not have a bare bottom (I read somewhere that bare bottom could be the issue). I have the Intank Media basket, running only filter floss.

I just tested today, and NO3 is at about 3ppm (API and Salifert) but PO4 is at about .75ppm (nyos test). This is perplexing me.

I've had a good amount of growth in the algae scrubber, which makes sense on why the NO3 is coming down, but I'm curious on why my PO4 is so high.

I have a mix of TDO Chromo Boost and Sustainable Aquatic dry hatchery diet that I do daily, along with some frozen brine and reef frenzy nano concoction for the dragonet. I also try to add in hikari bio-pure into the rotation once a week, as well as fresh hatched baby brine periodically.

I've been trying to feed a little heavier with the scrubber to keep those numbers happy... am j feeding too much?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I just tested today, and NO3 is at about 3ppm (API and Salifert) but PO4 is at about .75ppm (nyos test). This is perplexing me.

I'm not sure at what nitrate and phosphate values you started at, but even at 100 ppm nitrate and 1 ppm phosphate, a balanced method (like algae growth) could drop nitrate very low and not do much to phosphate because of the large reservoir of phosphate likely still bound to calcium carbonate surfaces.

 

[Cbones1979]

I understand. But of all of the folks doing that for that exact reason, most posting here do not find that metals or anything else indicated by the ICP is a clear cause.

Like I said my first icp did have aluminum.

You can come over and figure it out for me if you’d like. I’ll buy you a cheeseburger

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Like I said my first icp did have aluminum.

You can come over and figure it out for me if you’d like. I’ll buy you a cheeseburger

I'm not saying it is never useful. I saying it usually is not useful, and it is certainly normal to not find the answer in an ICP. I don't see any comment from you about aluminum in this thread, but it is not usually a cause for hard coral deaths.

 

[Spare time]

Best thing would be run gfo to lower phosphate. Just don’t overdue and strip it down too low.

Skimmer takes out proteins before they enter the nitrogen cycle. The end game of the nitrogen cycle is nitrate. So taking it off line not helping

Seagel is a combination of carbon and phosqaurd.
The carbon is taking out nutrients that will end up being nitrate= bad for your situation.
The phosgaurd is removing phosphate but would be more effective if you just run 100% phosgaurd, or some other gfo media. Run small amounts changing frequently, until you get into more acceptable range

I really don't think carbon does much to prevent nitrate. The benefits of running it for the health of the fish outweigh any issue from low nitrate.


EDIT: LOL I just saw the age of this thread, whoops

 

[stalkem]

I'm not sure at what nitrate and phosphate values you started at, but even at 100 ppm nitrate and 1 ppm phosphate, a balanced method (like algae growth) could drop nitrate very low and not do much to phosphate because of the large reservoir of phosphate likely still bound to calcium carbonate surfaces.

They started at 10ppm (NO3) and about .3ppm (PO4), which I dosed to during my dino battle.

Tank is about 6 months old now. Coralline growth is starting to come in nicely on walls and rocks. The few corals (just softies and LPS) I have seem happy.

I do biweekly water changes of just shy of 5 gallons out of the Biocube.

Would the recommendation be to add something to the media basket? Or should I be doing something differently with the system balance to bring it down?