No3 dosing question

[Flatlandreefer]

I have been fighting low nutrients and pale acros. Both nitrate and phos are 0. I started to dose nitrate yesterday with a goal of .5ppm per day until I get in the 5ppm range. My question is for others with experience dosing nutrients instead of relying on fish poop. If I stop dosing when I get up to 5ppm, I will be gone for thanksgiving, will the nutrients plummet quickly or can I expect them to remain somewhat stable for a week or two at a time?

 

[SeaDweller]

Difficult to say, what are your export methods? Skimmer, fuge? How much are you feeding your fish now, bioload? If you have something available to consume NO3, it may just fall back down that quickly

 

[Redfoxtang]

Agreed with above, what’s nutrient export? Something is consuming faster than your dosing. If skimmer try turning off for a week while increasing feeding a bit. What are you feeding also?

 

[Flatlandreefer]

Difficult to say, what are your export methods? Skimmer, fuge? How much are you feeding your fish now, bioload? If you have something available to consume NO3, it may just fall back down that quickly

I am running a somewhat unconventional setup. I converted a IM 25 tank into a plumbed tank that drains into a 100 g rubbermade sump that is filled to about 65-70 gallons, so about 90 gallons of total water volume for a 25 gallon display. Display has about a dozen acros that are still frags and some lps, there are a few lps and softies in the sump as well. Bio load is low 2 clowns and 1 tang in sump and a shrimp and snails. Planning on more fish but I don't live near an lfs so corals are always my priority when I go lol.

 

[Flatlandreefer]

Skimmer and weekly/sometimes biweekly water changes. I am planning to add N03 to my water change water while I am bringing my nitrates up initially.

 

[jda]

Step back and look at your system. Do you have a denitrating source? The stuff is not like junk in your basement where you bring in extra crap until it is full and then it stays there. The rock and sand will constantly turn it into nitrogen gas when it is stable and ready to go... you will constatnly fight this and the more nitrate that you add, the more anoxic bacteria will grow to consume it. You need to consider the living, breathing ecosystem that will adapt and modify - this is not a static math equation.

Instead of adding nitrate, just feed the fish more. Most corals prefer to get their nitrogen from ammonia and ammonium and not from nitrogen which requires more energy to get the nitrogen from the molecule. Unless you are wanting to poison dinos or diatoms, then ammonia/ammonium is the way to go for corals.

Seriously, if your tank is less than a year old and your corals are still frags, then they just need more time. Nobody has good looking corals in a young tank without putting a lot of makeup on them with RB LEDs.

 

[Flatlandreefer]

Update:

I dosed my tank up to roughly 2.5ppm nitrate before leaving for thanksgiving. Over 6 days of not dosing I tested and my nitrate worked its way down to around 1ppm.

Corals are noticeably coloring up since the increase in nitrate and algae is not growing any faster than it was, except for in the sump in the areas where the lighting footprint starts to fade out, kind of weird. I also picked up 3 chromis to help keep the poop load up in the display so hopefully they will help out dome.

 

[jda]

It will work back down quicker next time... you likely provided fuel for an expanded population of anoxic bacteria. It can become a never ending battle to always add more if you have an effective anoxic biofilter.

Feeding more does provide more ammonium/ammonia which can get to the corals better.

 

[Backreefing]

I personally wouldn’t dose , add a fish or feed more . Like JDA said . it’s more simple like that . Don’t worry about 0 nitrates with fish in there . There’s always more being made. Btw do you have to wipe the glass off every two days or so . If yes then you got nutrients.

 

[LARedstickreefer]

Be careful dosing nitrates. It can get away from you quick.