Nitrates too LOW??

Joshua Jordan · Oct 21, 2020

A few days ago I made a post about how I cannot grow Green Star Polyps at all in my LPS dominant tank. My nitrates always have shown 0 on my Red Sea kit but when Hanna recently came out with their Nitrates LR checker I bought one and now I have a number to go with my nitrates. My nitrates are sitting at 0.7 I did three back to back to back tests and they all tested there.

Here are my parameters with updated nitrates:

Temp: 79.5
Salinity: 1.025
pH: 8.5
Amonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0.7
Alkalinity: 8.7 dKh
Calcium: 320
Magnesium: 1650

I really would love to have some GSP on my back wall and on my overflows. Do you think I should start dosing nitrates and phosphates, too? I see FishOfHex has both NO3 & PO4 for dosing and have seen good results. I think I would rather keep my nitrates and phosphates at 0 with my current setup and dose them rather than start over-feeding or change my filtration setup.

Thoughts?

and thanks so much for your help

Stigigemla · Oct 21, 2020

The first thing You should do is to dose up the calcium. It shall be at least 400. Do it in small steps 2 times a day.
I would add about 20 mg/l the first doses but go down to 10 mg/l when You are closer to the target.
Nitrate 0,7 is probably good. Dont dose Phosphate before You know the value.
How do You measure the pH?

Joshua Jordan · Oct 21, 2020

Stigigemla said:
The first thing You should do is to dose up the calcium. It shall be at least 400. Do it in small steps 2 times a day.
I would add about 20 mg/l the first doses but go down to 10 mg/l when You are closer to the target.
Nitrate 0,7 is probably good. Dont dose Phosphate before You know the value.
How do You measure the pH?

I use an electronic device that is calibrated using the powdered solutions

Stigigemla · Oct 21, 2020

When the pH electrode get worn they often react slow when You are measuring a new solution. If You measure first tap water and then the tank water it should show the final value in less than 5 seconds.
I have a friend that crashed his tank because of a defect pH electrode. (It was showing low so he added a lot of sodium carbonate until the tank crashed.)
Its important to add some calcium now. The tank can crash any day if You dont do it.