Raising Nitrate

JOKER · Jun 24, 2014

What Is the best way to raise nitrate safely? I am at 0 and would like to be around 5 -10. Alk Is 7.5 phos. Is .07 calcium 500 sal1.245. Everything Is happy and growing but lost a little color. Nitrate has slowly came down over last month.

3Twinklets · Jun 24, 2014

Usually everyone is fighting to keep their nitrates lower. Have you checked your phosphates? Have you added any Iodine?By lost a little color do you mean in an extablished tank or new pieces?

EW_Fish · Jun 24, 2014

Guide of SPS coral coloration (make them more vivid, bright)

Pete polyp · Jun 24, 2014

I have to feed my tank rods 4-6 times a day and spot feed reef roids or coral frenzy twice a night to get mine to 0.5ppm.

Reefing Madness · Jun 24, 2014

Take your skimmer offline a few hours everyday. Or feed the heck out of everything.

EW_Fish · Jun 24, 2014

Oyster FEAST! lol

Adam Baggett · Jun 24, 2014

Man you can take some of mine.

JOKER · Jun 24, 2014

Above were test as of this morning. Phosphate is a little high, .07 with hanna but just added gfo so that should come down. This tank always runs low on nitrate. It is getting close to a year old. Everything is a little off on color but growing well. It is not terrible looking but has looked better when had nitrate around 5. I feed pellets twice a day, alternate reef frenzy at night on sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday night. Since starting reef frenzy my phosphate started climbing. I can go months without changing water and nitrate still low. I have recently started 10 gallon every week and 20 on the weeks my phosphate are little high. Just added a 40 display fuge with some macro and mangroves to lower phosphate as I had a little gha start to grow.

3Twinklets said:
Usually everyone is fighting to keep their nitrates lower. Have you checked your phosphates? Have you added any Iodine?By lost a little color do you mean in an extablished tank or new pieces?

3Twinklets · Jun 24, 2014

Personally, I would not be worried about the nitrates so much. I would try to get those phosphates down though. I use Zeo addatives when I feel like I need to bring up the color but in very limited amounts. What kind of corals do you have and what kind of lighting do you have?

JOKER · Jun 24, 2014

Reefing I think you just hit it. I am running a 36" lifereef skimmer, I bet I am over skimming. Also would changing my sock filters every other day have any effect? First tank I have had no trouble with nitrate without running pellets. I will post picks when get home. This is a 90 with 3 red fairy anthias 2 tang, tomini and a yellow, yellow watchman goby, pair of platinum clown, pair of goby I cant remember name of right now, orchid dottyback ,pajama cardinal, pair of fire shrimp, pair of peppermint shrimp,few micro brittle stars,tanaka wrasse, and few more plus all the cuc.

Reefing Madness said:
Take your skimmer offline a few hours everyday. Or feed the heck out of everything.

JOKER · Jun 24, 2014

I am keeping little of everything, but sps dominant. Running rapid led setup, it is the 180 kit that I use 2 of the kit over the 90. Running blue at 70% the white color and uv at 30%. The phosphate problem is being tackled now, just added the 40 display fuge with macro and floating gfo also.

Reefing Madness · Jun 24, 2014

Yea, the socks would have an impact also.

JOKER · Jun 25, 2014

If I let the socks run for 3-4 days would that help raise nitrate? Also would the phosphate also be raised? I plan to change over to the dc 12000 pump this week hopefully and I will plumb so I can take skimmer offline to see if that helps. I may even just take it offline and run the line into the sump to see what happens. What do you guys like keeping nitrate at? Some say as low as possible and others like 5-10.

howaboutme · Jun 25, 2014

Redfield ratio. If you follow it, you need no3 to lower po4. i use KNO3. you can get it cheap at lowes called spectracide stump remover. google it, it's not an unusual technique in the hobby. you don't want to add no3 via food since you'll also add po4. if you're worried about the k part, you will have to dose a lot, enough to get your NO3 way too high, for K to be at a number that's high as well. You can also do NaNO3 or CaNO3.

reeffirstaid · Jun 25, 2014

I would suggest looking at trace elements and amino acids. It should help your corals color back up, and may cause a slight increase in nitrate.

Reefing Madness · Jun 25, 2014

5-10 on the Trates is good.
I wouldn't think the socks would have anything to do with phosphates, as those would stay in the water with whatever they come in on.
Try on thing at a time first, try leaving the socks in for 5-7 days, see where that gets you. If you don't like it, then take the skimmer offline for so much time out of the day.

beaslbob · Jun 25, 2014

JOKER said:
What Is the best way to raise nitrate safely? I am at 0 and would like to be around 5 -10. Alk Is 7.5 phos. Is .07 calcium 500 sal1.245. Everything Is happy and growing but lost a little color. Nitrate has slowly came down over last month.

calcium nitrate

3Twinklets · Jun 25, 2014

Amino acids do help color quite a lot. That is my go to for color. If you leave your filter socks to the point where they are quite plugged, you risk overflowing your sump with foam/scum. I have done this , (Because I could not be here to change them), and found salt creep in the cracks of my flooring. I think I would just remove the socks completely if you want to try that route.I prefer the nitrates to be as low as possible, which is difficult for me because I am a heavy feeder. Making adjustments with chemicals could bring unwanted results.