nitrate

[jose hernandez]

will do thnks everyone

 

[LRT]

should i dose trace elements again or stick to monthly water changes

Why are you dosing trace elements? Did you send a water test in and find something off?

 

[X-37B]

I would rerurn to dosing trace and get your alk stable and back to 8.6 slowly.

 

[LRT]

I would rerurn to dosing trace and get your alk stable and back to 8.6 slowly.

Not sure id dose trace elements considering weekly changes here. And especially if I wasn't testing or sending water samples to know what trace elements are. Id let alk settle in to natural daily usage personally. I think too much is being done to fast here and throwing off natural balance corals are acclimated too. Idk though

 

[X-37B]

Not sure id dose trace elements considering weekly changes here. And especially if I wasn't testing or sending water samples to know what trace elements are. Id let alk settle in to natural daily usage personally. I think too much is being done to fast here and throwing off natural balance corals are acclimated too. Idk though

He had a good handle on everything it appears prior.
I would have addressed the high, how high, po4 levels with a po4 reducing agent and kept everything the same.
A little algae on the glass is normal for most systems.

 

[LRT]

He had a good handle on everything it appears prior.
I would have addressed the high, how high, po4 levels with a po4 reducing agent and kept everything the same.
A little algae on the glass is normal for most systems.

I didn't see Phosphate levels being a concern and not sure why a reducing agent would be used here. My bad i must have missed that. Id stop with all that as well. I have a cpl shrooms that start bleaching in low phosphate levels and the levels posted I felt where already flirting on the low side.
Im curious what daily alk usage is and if its remained consistent through all the recent changes. My guess is no and its swinging too much out of the norm from recent weekly water changes.
Agree everything was probably fine and all good before the weekly water changes and probably shouldn't have changed things up so fast

 

[brunera]

Any chance you got one of the bad batches of TM Pro Reef Salt?

 

[LRT]

Any chance you got one of the bad batches of TM Pro Reef Salt?

Great point is the salt from Turkey? I almost mentioned that.

 

[X-37B]

I didn't see Phosphate levels being a concern and not sure why a reducing agent would be used here. My bad i must have missed that. Id stop with all that as well. I have a cpl shrooms that start bleaching in low phosphate levels and the levels posted I felt where already flirting on the low side.
Im curious what daily alk usage is and if its remained consistent through all the recent changes. My guess is no and its swinging too much out of the norm from recent weekly water changes.
Agree everything was probably fine and all good before the weekly water changes and probably shouldn't have changed things up so fast

Yea he said he stopped dosing trace and also started doing weekly WC's because he said po4 was high and green algae was on the glass.
Did not say how high po4 was though.

 

[LRT]

Yea he said he stopped dosing trace and also started doing weekly WC's because he said po4 was high and green algae was on the glass.
Did not say how high po4 was though.

I misread that as he started doing weekly water changes and dosing trace at same time. My bad and sorry for the confusion here!
The green on glass with lower levels and trace being dosed is very interesting thanks for pointing that out!
Wonder how coraline growth looks

 

[jose hernandez]

Don’t think it was the salt as all the other corals would have been effected right now haven’t did a water change in. 2 weeks another thing I ran out of salt so don’t know what do when I need to do a water change what would be a good replacement to use as I see they are out of stock everywhere

 

[PeterEde]

only tested because my australian duncans are fully closed and my long tentacle plate is shrinking

My tank is at 35 Nitrate tested with hanna hr today and my Duncan's fine as are most except a leather that has never opened

 

[jose hernandez]

Never got them that high

 

[workhz]

Those numbers are fine and 2 ppm nitrate is also fine, but verging low, not high.

I was searching for some nitrate target levels online and happened across what I think is something written by you:

“For these reasons, most reef aquarists strive to keep nitrate levels down. A good target is less than 0.2 ppm nitrate. Reef aquaria can function acceptably at much higher nitrate levels (say, 20 ppm), but run greater risks of the problems described above.”

I ask because I still have too much phosphate and my nitrates bottomed out. So am dosing nitrate slowly and reducing phosphate slowly but wanted a good target and was thinking something like 0.1 phosphate and 5ppm nitrate but then ran across the above quote.

Any clarification would be appreciated.

 

[Anthony Scholfield]

Don’t think it was the salt as all the other corals would have been effected right now haven’t did a water change in. 2 weeks another thing I ran out of salt so don’t know what do when I need to do a water change what would be a good replacement to use as I see they are out of stock everywhere

I second the idea that it could be the salt. I would check to see if the TMP you are using is from turkey.

You went from less water changes to more water changes and began to see some issues if i understand correctly. You made some other minor changes as well but those are minor. Not enough in my opinion to cause concern.

I typically use HW marine for salt. It was out of stock for a bit so i substituted in TMP back in October. It wasnt instantly but i started to notice issues with my corals, some not all. I racked my brain trying to figure it out. I started to hear the whispers about bad TMP from turkey. Checked my salt and sure enough it was from turkey. About that time the HW had come in so i had a box waiting to be used when i ran out of the TMP. I didnt wait and switched back to HW and within 3 weeks, (weekly WC) everything was looking better. I used the TMP from turkey for almost 3 months and it hurt my system for sure.

The last thing i would have thought is the salt but it is known TMP from turkey has some problems.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I was searching for some nitrate target levels online and happened across what I think is something written by you:

“For these reasons, most reef aquarists strive to keep nitrate levels down. A good target is less than 0.2 ppm nitrate. Reef aquaria can function acceptably at much higher nitrate levels (say, 20 ppm), but run greater risks of the problems described above.”

I ask because I still have too much phosphate and my nitrates bottomed out. So am dosing nitrate slowly and reducing phosphate slowly but wanted a good target and was thinking something like 0.1 phosphate and 5ppm nitrate but then ran across the above quote.

Any clarification would be appreciated.

That must be fairly old.

Many of us used to use the ocean as a way to set appropriate target levels, but later realized that N and P need to be higher than the ocean (perhaps due to lack of particulate foods for corals). Dinos seems to be an especially problematic risk at low levels.

My current recommendations are 2-10 ppm nitrate and 0.02 to 0.1 ppm phosphate.

 

[jose hernandez]

i threw out the box so wouldnt know if it was from turkey probably was but as of now duncans are still closed up i stopped dosing alk for now to try and get them down just purchased a red sea salt blue bucket gonna give it a shot and take it from there thnks again for everyones input

 

[vetteguy53081]

so i have the hanna nitrate high range checker tested my water and it reads 2.0 is this high

Its fine. You dont want zero nor do you want higher than 12 or so