Nitrate at 0 - Seachem Flourish Nitrogen

[Aaron Soliz]

Hello All,

My aquarium if fairly established for 1 1/2 years and I never had nitrate issues. A month ago I realized they were at 0 so I turned my skimmer off and after 2 weeks... no change. I purchased Flourish Nitrogen yesterday and dosed my 20 gallon nuvo with 1 1/2 mil of FN. I checked it today as there was no movement. My favorite reef store shared to dose every day or every other day of the 1 1/2 mils till I get it up to 5 - 10.

Does this sound okay to everyone? I purchased B-Ionic Nitrate as I heard this is better for dosing. Phosphate is good actually... sitting at .05.

Please give me your thoughts regarding this matter.

Cheers,
Aaron

 

[brmreefer]

No experience with B-ionic NO3, but I do dose potassium nitrate (DIY Spectracide Stump Killer). I think you'll do good dosing the B-Ionic just make sure to follow the directions to not bring up your system's NO3 too suddenly. Happy reefing.

 

[GillMeister]

I've been dosing the B -ionic nitrate and I'm maintaining about 2ppm. I was also at 0 before that. Phosphate is running about .03ppm and I trickle through GFO to keep it there.

I've seen an increase in color and growth since dosing nitrate. It works. I just had dry reagent grade sodium nitrate delivered today and I'll use that when the B-ionic is used up.

 

[Aaron Soliz]

I've been dosing the B -ionic nitrate and I'm maintaining about 2ppm. I was also at 0 before that. Phosphate is running about .03ppm and I trickle through GFO to keep it there.

I've seen an increase in color and growth since dosing nitrate. It works. I just had dry reagent grade sodium nitrate delivered today and I'll use that when the B-ionic is used up.

Yes that’s exactly what i am trying to do as well. B iconic should here on the 10th but trying to get it up a bit with this flourish stuff i bought for the time being.

 

[Reeffraff]

Just curious, is there are particular reason you are raising your nitrates? Is something doing poorly or have you noticed a negative change? What corals do you have? Zero on a test kit doesn't mean there are no nitrates in your system. If you are adding food regularly, nitrates are there. IME chasing numbers can often result in more negatives than positives and I'm of the camp of 'if it's not broke, don't fix it'.

 

[Aaron Soliz]

Just did my first dose of nitrate and it bumped it to 2.
Checked my phosphate and now it’s at 0. Do i need to add bright-wall phosphate now?

 

[Aaron Soliz]

Or maybe let my new life spectrum food get the phosphate up a bit again.