Nitrate (12ppm) and Dosing help.

[austinl]

Hey AF Pro's, looking for some help dialing in some dosing/feeding and with Nitrate control.

Here is an overview of whats in the tank, parameters and products that I have available currently. Tank is a 75 gallon with 25 gallon sump. Running an oversized skimmer (vertex 150) and a reactor with AF Carbon and AF GFO. Water changes are consistantly done and have been large to keep Nitrates down.


Current Parameters (using Red Sea Kits)

ALK 7.6 (aiming for 8)
Cal 420
MG 1400
Nitrate 12ppm
SG 1.025
Temp 79

I am currently using my old two part to dose ALK and Cal until I mix up/make my new components using the established formula.

Fish/Inverts
2 True perc clowns
3 Blue chromis
Yellow Eye Kole Tang
Yellow Tang
3 Hermit Crabs
1 Emerald Crab
10 Astrea Snails
2 large orange spotted Nassarius snails

Corals
Midnight Grand Acan Lord
Fiery Heart Acan Lord
Rainbow Bubbles Florida Ricordia
Sweet Pea Florida Ricordia
Pool Party Florida Ricordia
Green bubble tip Anemone
Purple and Gold Torch
Purple Tyree LE Starbust Porites
2 Purple Monticap frags
1 Large Mystic sunset monti
1 Sunset Monti
2 Unknown green monti

Ponape Birdsnest frag
3 Acropora frags


Products I have currently

Reef salt
Bio S
AF Carbon
AF Phos minus
Reef Mineral Salt
Calcium
Kh buffer
Magnesium
Component Strong
AF Amino, Build, Energy and Vitality.
AF power food and ricco food


My current feeding of the tank consists of a single frozen cube of either mysis or brine shrimp. Every other day I add a sheet of nori for the tangs and ever now and then i add a few pellets for variety.

Beyond my current two part dosing with the tank being on the new side and a low coral load I am thinking of a schedule like below for coral feeding.

Sunday -
Monday - AF PowerFood/AF Ricco 1/4 Dose
Tuesday - Water Change / BioS
Wednesday -
Thursday - AF Energy/AF Build 1/4 Dose
Friday -
Saturday - AF Vitality/AF Amino 1/4 Dose

Ocassional dose of Reef Roids and Pellet coral feeding not exceding once in the week


Now given all that can anyone see why nitrates may be high and or would any of the above dosing cause an issue such as high nitrates.

Look forward to hearing your thoughts.

 

[Abhishek]

High nitrates !!!! Where ??
Anyways , why do you want to reduce 12 ppm of nitrates ?
Any issues you can see with 12 ppm of nitrates ?

 

[austinl]

High nitrates !!!! Where ??
Anyways , why do you want to reduce 12 ppm of nitrates ?
Any issues you can see with 12 ppm of nitrates ?

The issue with the nitrates is working to stay ahead of any algae issues and more so that water changes seem to make very little impact to the value.

That said i'm making sure ahead of time that any of my dosing and feeding habits are not hampering efforts to lower them.

Would rather be proactive rather than reactive.

 

[Abhishek]

12 ppm is not at all bad .. don't know what others suggest but lowering nitrates below what you have now will have detrimental effects on corals leading to starvation and death .
I maintain a acropora dominated tank and always keep my nitrates around 10 to help them grow and be colorful .
Would advice not to chase numbers
Regards,
Abhishek

 

[Anirban]

Why exactly you are dosing so much food and amino together?

 

[austinl]

Why exactly you are dosing so much food and amino together?

Hey Anirban,

That is a proposed schedule not what I am doing currently. This is exactly why I posted it as I want to avoid any issues of overfeeding/dosing. That said as per the instructions I believe it says to dose them on the same day, please correct me if I am wrong.

The only dosing currently is my left over 2 part mix that im using to keep my ALK and Calc up. I plan to mix the Component up this week.

 

[Anirban]

Dont dose any amino in the tank unless your NO3 hits atleast 2-3ppm mark. You can dose vitamin once a week thats all. No other food other than what you feed your fish. What your PO4 reading and how you measure it?

 

[austinl]

I measure PO4 with a Hanna checker currently it is at 0.00. I haven't dosed any amino as of yet.

 

[Anirban]

One more thing do 10% water change for 6-8 weeks with the reef salt. Don't change anything else other than putting less coral food and keep us posted.

 

[BlueCursor]

He has LPS and montis. Low nitrates will only negatively impact the LPS and the montis don't care. As a target I would shoot for 5 ppm nitrates if you want to keep them "low", but many of the best SPS reefers have nitrates 20+ despite the low nutrient opinions. I just read an article on a guy who contact some of the most famous reefers, and several of them had nitrates over 20 ppm, while keeping SPS.

 

[austinl]

He has LPS and montis. Low nitrates will only negatively impact the LPS and the montis don't care. As a target I would shoot for 5 ppm nitrates if you want to keep them "low", but many of the best SPS reefers have nitrates 20+ despite the low nutrient opinions. I just read an article on a guy who contact some of the most famous reefers, and several of them had nitrates over 20 ppm, while keeping SPS.

Thanks bluecursor

I had read something similar previously, but then you read more about keeping them in check.

What I am trying to achieve it a 5-10 range and obviously keep algae in check as best as possible.

As I said earlier I'm trying to be proactive and not reactive, which is why I am looking to have a schedule/dosing plan that can be used for my lightly stocked system and the ramp up as I add all my SPS

 

[Anirban]

A lot of reefer have a misconception about low nitrate and LPS or coral health. Low nutrient or ultra low nutrient does not mean you dont feed the LPS or corals. Actually in all ULNS tanks people use coral foods which are very potent and effective and nutrient rich. But you should only dose that amount which is consumed totally by the corals and hence no unused foods and no high PO4 and NO3 levels. I am not at all concerned about his NO3 levels I have personally kept corals at very high NO3 without any bad effect but I am more concerned about that much high NO3 and amino acid dosing. Those two in combination can bomb a whole tank which I dont want.
As far the best reefers and NO3 parameters concerned I read that article too. In a fully mature tank with good large water volume high PO4 and NO3 value actually behave differently than that of a new smaller volume tank. One last thing, its good to follow experts tank parameters but every tank is different ecologically and has its own pros and cons, so if we understand them better then we can be experts of our own system too.

 

[austinl]

Little update,

Stopped dosing as advised and am feeding 1 cube of Mysis per day and a pinch of Pellets

Parameters below

PH 8 - 8.2
SG 1.025
ALK 7.6-7.8
Calc 410
Mag 1300
Nitrate 12ppm


As a side note my water has been super cloudy and not sure why ( i did rework some rock but water was cloudy before that), I am doing weekly water changes as i normally do. I replaced my Phosphate Minus and AF Carbon today using the stack method ( no filter between) seems as though some of the carbon has risen into the Phosphate minus is this normal?

 

[Anirban]

Your parameters look good. The cloudiness is possibly due to bacterial overgrowth so don't dose any carbon source or cut it half. You can either feed pellet or the frozen, try feeding small amount multiple times.
The carbon do move and mix a bit but thats not a big deal.

 

[austinl]

Yeah I'm not doing any carbon dosing that I am aware of.

The only thing I am doing is feeding, and dosing alk/calc to maintain with two part.

I'm mixing the components up tomorrow to replace my old two part.

 

[Anirban]

Do you dose Pro bio S and NP pro? Whats the source of your bacteria?

 

[austinl]

Do you dose Pro bio S and NP pro? Whats the source of your bacteria?

No I don't have any Pro Bio S or NP pro. Wasn't doing the probiotic program.

In the aquaforest guide I have the products for option 3 LPS/SPS with the make your own component.

 

[Anirban]

You dont dose any bacteria from any manufacturer? How did you cycle and how do you think you nitrogen cycle works specially the denitrification? Pro bio S and NP pro does not mean probio method. If you use the probiotic salt along with probiotics and vitamin etc then its probiotic programme. You tank denitrification is not that efficient so you need to take care of that.

 

[austinl]

You dont dose any bacteria from any manufacturer? How did you cycle and how do you think you nitrogen cycle works specially the denitrification? Pro bio S and NP pro does not mean probio method. If you use the probiotic salt along with probiotics and vitamin etc then its probiotic programme. You tank denitrification is not that efficient so you need to take care of that.

Hey Anirban, my tank has/had cycled, and I was using Bio S for my water changes and any additions of livestock.

The Aquaforest guide states that the Pro bio S and NP Pro are labelled as probiotic unless I am reading the guide wrong and are a daily addition.

 

[Anirban]

The word Probiotic in layman term stands for good bacteria. So, bio s helps you to get the cycle going and process the ammonia to NO3 via NO2. But then you need to export NO3 out either through water changes or by breaking it down to N2 gas which will released back in the environment. So, without adding any denitrification bacteria your NO3 will stay high. Probio s fixes NO3 to skimmable material along with PO4 and in this way it reduces PO4 and NO3 from the system.