Nitrates dropped. Lights or Pods?

[Fringe09]

Hi fellow reefers. I did not turn my lights on for the first three weeks of my cycle. Around the 3 week mark, Ammonia was 0, Nitrate 0, and Nitrates 4.

I started seeding with pods and turned the lights on 12 hours a day to get some algae growth.

I check the parameters today which is been a little over a week and my Nitrates have dropped to around 2 ppm. Was this caused by the algae growth, pods, or something else?

 

[Flippers4pups]

Hi fellow reefers. I did not turn my lights on for the first three weeks of my cycle. Around the 3 week mark, Ammonia was 0, Nitrate 0, and Nitrates 4.

I started seeding with pods and turned the lights on 12 hours a day to get some algae growth.

I check the parameters today which is been a little over a week and my Nitrates have dropped to around 2 ppm. Was this caused by the algae growth, pods, or something else?

If your not feeding the tank, bacteria will have nothing to consume and break down into NO3. It will continue to drop until it's 0 without "fuel" (organics) to consume.

 

[Saltybubbles288]

I'd lean towards algae growth. The pods will eat algae and other small particles such as food and waste but I don't think they directly effect the nitrate levels by consuming them directly in anyway.

 

[Fringe09]

Thank you both. Added CUC on Tuesday and will be adding three fish that I've been quarantining for a couple of weeks this weekend.

 

[Flippers4pups]

I'd lean towards algae growth. The pods will eat algae and other small particles such as food and waste but I don't think they directly effect the nitrate levels by consuming them directly in anyway.

Nuisance algaes will consume PO4 from foods as fuel, combined with light for photosynthesis. Direct increase or decrease of nitrates are linked to the biological process in which bacteria are breaking down foods/waste products and depend on their availability.

In other words, decaying matter will become nitrates at the end of the biological cycle.