Phosphate and nitrate trouble. Help please

[Fishn28]

After testing my phos and nitrate the readings came back and my phosphate is at .53 ppm and my nitrate is at .9 ppm. My corals are dying quickly and I need to reverse this now. Is there a way to lower phosphate without bottoming out my nitrate? Any help would be great thanks !

 

[crazyfishmom]

I would highly encourage you to raise nitrates by dosing to reduce the stress on your corals.

As far as phosphate reduction, I think it might be time to try GFO but go slow and before trying to use GFO you should definitely start to dose nitrates.

 

[Fishn28]

I would highly encourage you to raise nitrates by dosing to reduce the stress on your corals.

As far as phosphate reduction, I think it might be time to try GFO but go slow and before trying to use GFO you should definitely start to dose nitrates.

What nitrate do you reccomend

 

[crazyfishmom]

What nitrate do you reccomend

NeoNitro would be my go to in this situation. Daily dosing with slow increases until you get to where you would usually want to keep your nitrates and then you can start using GFO and monitor both levels. There’s a good chance that as you bring your nitrates up that your phosphates will start to go down naturally as you reestablish nutrient balance in your tank.

 

[Fishn28]

NeoNitro would be my go to in this situation. Daily dosing with slow increases until you get to where you would usually want to keep your nitrates and then you can start using GFO and monitor both levels. There’s a good chance that as you bring your nitrates up that your phosphates will start to go down naturally as you reestablish nutrient balance in your tank.

Thanks. I currently run pyrogen I will remove that and see if nitrates increase before I start dosing. I will also likely use phosguard over gfo just for the ease of use

 

[Fishn28]

Thanks. I currently run pyrogen I will remove that and see if nitrates increase before I start dosing. I will also likely use phosguard over gfo just for the ease of use

Purigen*

 

[crazyfishmom]

Probably a good idea to remove the purigen.

Be careful with the phosguard, it removes silicates as well and that combined with low nitrates could induce a Dinoflagellate outbreak.

 

[Fishn28]

Probably a good idea to remove the purigen.

Be careful with the phosguard, it removes silicates as well and that combined with low nitrates could induce a Dinoflagellate outbreak.

I will wait to use phosguard until nitrates reach a stable level to avoid this

 

[Solo McReefer]

What test is there that has a 0.50 PPM resolution for nitrate?

And that extremely low nitrate combos with a very high 0.9 PPM for phosphate, how did that happen?

 

[Fishn28]

If I were to add more base rock would that lower phosphate?

 

[crazyfishmom]

Rock is a bit of a double edged sword. It might adsorb some of it at first and then it’ll leach it back into the system until it equilibrates. If it were live rock that’s fully conditioned it wouldn’t be as risky and the bacteria on it might help to bring the phosphates down.

 

[chunming08]

I recently just went through the same situation - nopox and phosphateRx are great solutions!