Phosphates vs Nitrates

[Charley]

Had phosphates and nitrates down to zero to help battle GHA. As I feared, in doing so, dinoflagellates reared its ugly head. So decided to raise nitrates using KN03. Raised to 60 and worked beautifully, not a sign of dinoflagellates. But phosphates up to .05. I can bring it to zero using Phos Rx to weaken GHA and remove. Can you have high nitrates with zero phosphates long term. Coral colors look great with high nitrates.

 

[reef lover]

Zero phosphates in any situation is never good long term for corals.

 

[Reefadore]

I just went through a dosing of PhosRX and it did absolutely nothing for my GHA outbreak. It made it a little softer, and it no longer appears on my glass, but still did really nothing. High phosphates are the primary reason for algae outbreaks... IMO and IME

 

[clm65]

Phosphates at 0.05 sound pretty good to me. I wouldn't lower them (IMO).

 

[SPR1968]

I’ve been running at 20ppm nitrates for a few years now and the corals glow with colour and life and grow very quickly (for corals).

You don’t want absolute zero phosphate because some is required but you want it near zero and a good target is around 0.03ppm so very low. That’s what I do anyway and you can read up a bit more on this and below is an excellent article

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-09/rhf/

 

[SeaDweller]

At 0.05, I’d leave it alone.