Nitrate 2.8ppm , Phosphate .01 would you do your normal weekly water change?

[Tuan’s Reef]

Been away from my tank for almost a week. Corals look fantastic with crazy PE and growth everywhere. my alk dropped from 7.2 to 6.4 (red sea blue bucket, using hannah ulr phos checker). My Nitrate, and Phosphate has also been steadily declining as well (I have neophos, and neonitro to dose as needed but have not dosed yet) I only have 2 small fish and feed them frozen once or twice a day and feed reef roids and benepets to the corals every Saturday or Sunday.

This morning my Nitrate is at 2.8ppm (hannah cheker) and Phosphate at .01 (hannah ulr phos checker) I usually do my water change today, but seeing my NO3 and PO4 is rather low, should i skip ? I manually dose everything for now including trace elements with Red Sea additives. I am currently setting up my Versa to dose Kalk (debating if I should just go with TM All for Reef to simplify dosing.

I would feed more if i had more fish, but it takes a while to get them go thru QT. I have 2 clowns coming within a few days to add to the bioload.

 

[Jekyl]

Haven't changed water in months

 

[Tuan’s Reef]

Corals entrusting, hammers and torches splitting, tank started on may 6 2022

 

[SPR1968]

Personally if your replenshing trace elements anyway, I would skip it because you dont want your nitrate levels much less as you will create sterile water and then other bad things can happen

I find corals look much better with nitrates at around 10-25 or even higher but thats for mature systems. Keep phosphate under control though

 

[NowGlazeIT]

Haven't changed water in months

+1

 

[BroccoliFarmer]

Nope. no need to change.

 

[Tuan’s Reef]

Going to skip water change this week. I just dosed neonitro and neophos. My office looks like it's been taken over by chemicals lol

 

[Lavey29]

If things seem to be going fine then maybe opt for biweekly water change instead. Water changes will lower nitrate slightly but do virtually nothing for phosphate. Various simple methods to raise both if needed. Your actual nitrates number is higher, the corals just intake it but since you are stocking more corals perhaps your fish bioload is not keeping up?

 

[Tuan’s Reef]

Agreed fish bioload is very low. 2 more on the way with more planned.

 

[emain879]

Looks great! How big is your system?

 

[Tuan’s Reef]

Red sea 200xl g2 . 53g total volume

 

[Wasabiroot]

Water changes are not necessarily utilized to reduce phosphates - in this manner they are likely better for reducing buildup of heavy metals and toxic compounds not removed via skimmate or other processes as phosphate easily binds to media and substrate as well as rock. If it was me, I'd say if everything is happy, a water change wouldn't hurt if you continue your normal feeding regiment but it's probably not necessary. That alk drop is something you'll want to address though.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I'd personally change water as usual and feed more if you find nutrients are too low (with or without water changes).

 

[Tuan’s Reef]

Been feeding more and can see an increase on both nitrate and phosphate. It's at 4.2 for no3 and .06 for phos now. Feeding heavy with some neonitro and neophos has helped.

It's back to the normal weekly wc for me

 

[Cory]

Id do it as usual as your success may be based on them anways.

 

[emain879]

Yeah, I’d keep doing them. A good tank or anything in life is done consistently