t5Nitro
Valuable Member
Hey guys and gals,
My tank is still pretty new, about 4 months since cycle completion. More recently I have mats of cyano covering rocks, some on coral. I have DIY phos and nitrate solution that I mixed using recipes found on here. I now am able to keep my phos at 0.05-0.06 (Hanna ULR). My nitrates are still unmeasurable (API nitrate). I've only dosed 6mL over 3 days of the nitrate solution; I mixed it up to the planted tank calculator to give 1ppm per 1mL. Theoretically I should have up to 6ppm if nothing in my tank consumed it. I'm wondering if the corals use the nitrate this quickly that I should be dosing a lot more than 2mL daily, or if this is being rapidly consumed by diatoms or cyanobacteria? Any further steps I should take or just keep on with routine maintenance and give the tank time? I feed 3 times daily either all pellets or pellets/LRS.
Other filtration methods include UV sterilizer, protein skimmer (skimming dry), filter sock and chemipure blue 1 bag passively in the sump. Water changes 1% daily with RODI source.
Today I gave a half dose of chemiclean (read somewhere on here there was success at 1/4 dose) and powered off the UV and removed the bag of chemipure.
To recap: is this unusual to continue to show 0 nitrates with the phos in appropriate limits? Anything else I should be doing with the tank at this stage or to continue on?
My tank is still pretty new, about 4 months since cycle completion. More recently I have mats of cyano covering rocks, some on coral. I have DIY phos and nitrate solution that I mixed using recipes found on here. I now am able to keep my phos at 0.05-0.06 (Hanna ULR). My nitrates are still unmeasurable (API nitrate). I've only dosed 6mL over 3 days of the nitrate solution; I mixed it up to the planted tank calculator to give 1ppm per 1mL. Theoretically I should have up to 6ppm if nothing in my tank consumed it. I'm wondering if the corals use the nitrate this quickly that I should be dosing a lot more than 2mL daily, or if this is being rapidly consumed by diatoms or cyanobacteria? Any further steps I should take or just keep on with routine maintenance and give the tank time? I feed 3 times daily either all pellets or pellets/LRS.
Other filtration methods include UV sterilizer, protein skimmer (skimming dry), filter sock and chemipure blue 1 bag passively in the sump. Water changes 1% daily with RODI source.
Today I gave a half dose of chemiclean (read somewhere on here there was success at 1/4 dose) and powered off the UV and removed the bag of chemipure.
To recap: is this unusual to continue to show 0 nitrates with the phos in appropriate limits? Anything else I should be doing with the tank at this stage or to continue on?
