Raising nitrate

dvgyfresh · Mar 23, 2021

Soo after moving and adding a sump to my tank it seems Iam having issues increasing nitrate, I have a 40b with 10gal sump and 11 BTAs, 4 clowns, 1 orchid dottyback, 1 six line , and various clean up crew. My tank before the move was having nitrate upwards of 20-40ppm and now I’m sitting at nearly 0. I’m feeding two cubes of mysis per day and some new life spectrum pellets and dosing almost 15 ml of neo nitro, nitrates still low. Do I possibly have my refugium light on too long (never off lol but it has caulerpa so I’d rather it stay on) or should I be feeding more?

GillMeister · Mar 23, 2021

The first thing I'd try is putting your refugium light on a schedule opposite your display lights.

dvgyfresh · Mar 23, 2021

GillMeister said:
The first thing I'd try is putting your refugium light on a schedule opposite your display lights.

Just turned off light , you think the caulerpa won’t go sexual ? I’ve read that keeping the lights on prevents this , I could also just take it all out and only use Chaeto

GillMeister · Mar 23, 2021

I don't know anything about calendar other than what it looks like. I use Chaeto. My nitrates are low as well so I dose sodium nitrate.

dvgyfresh · Mar 23, 2021

GillMeister said:
I don't know anything about calendar other than what it looks like. I use Chaeto. My nitrates are low as well so I dose sodium nitrate.

Ok I will run the lights reverse of my daytime schedule and see if that helps, also side note, I have little flow in my sump, just water running down and then to return pump , should I add a wave maker down there to increase flow/ PH?

GillMeister · Mar 23, 2021

dvgyfresh said:
Ok I will run the lights reverse of my daytime schedule and see if that helps, also side note, I have little flow in my sump, just water running down and then to return pump , should I add a wave maker down there to increase flow/ PH?

You don't have a skimmer? That's going to give you much more gas exchange than a wave maker.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Mar 23, 2021

dvgyfresh said:
Ok I will run the lights reverse of my daytime schedule and see if that helps, also side note, I have little flow in my sump, just water running down and then to return pump , should I add a wave maker down there to increase flow/ PH?

For what purpose?

Are you monitoring phosphate as well?

dvgyfresh · Mar 23, 2021

GillMeister said:
You don't have a skimmer? That's going to give you much more gas exchange than a wave maker.

No skimmer currently , I have one just haven’t hooked up because I’m already battling lower nutrients

dvgyfresh · Mar 23, 2021

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
For what purpose?

Are you monitoring phosphate as well?

I’d like to increase my ph to 8.3ish it currently sits at 7.9-8.0 and I have to check phosphate later today my Hanna checker battery died lol so I’m buying some triple as later , I expect it to be low as well

Randy Holmes-Farley · Mar 23, 2021

dvgyfresh said:
I’d like to increase my ph to 8.3ish it currently sits at 7.9-8.0 and I have to check phosphate later today my Hanna checker battery died lol so I’m buying some triple as later , I expect it to be low as well

If the phosphate is low or normal, feeding more is a good plan.

If it is high, then I'd dose food grade sodium nitrate or a high quality calcium nitrate.

dedragon · Mar 23, 2021

if you are worried about the caulerpa going sexual on opposite schedule why not just get rid of it?

dvgyfresh · Mar 23, 2021

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
If the phosphate is low or normal, feeding more is a good plan.

If it is high, then I'd dose food grade sodium nitrate or a high quality calcium nitrate.

Thanks for the input, is neo nitro considered a good nitrate additive? It’s what I currently been using and I’ll send in some numbers/parameters when I get off work, again thank you!

dvgyfresh · Mar 23, 2021

dedragon said:
if you are worried about the caulerpa going sexual on opposite schedule why not just get rid of it?

Good point lol I probly will , it’s just sooo good at soaking up nutrients but probly working too well atm

Randy Holmes-Farley · Mar 23, 2021

dvgyfresh said:
Thanks for the input, is neo nitro considered a good nitrate additive? It’s what I currently been using and I’ll send in some numbers/parameters when I get off work, again thank you!

I do not believe anyone knows its purity or concentration. Folks seems to become frustrated with it not boosting nitrate much. Dosing more of it is a fine plan if you trust Brightwell.

dedragon · Mar 23, 2021

any information about the seachem flourish nitrogen and phosphate Randy, I used it and nitrate seemed to increase easily while phosphate barely moves

Randy Holmes-Farley · Mar 23, 2021

dvgyfresh said:
Good point lol I probly will , it’s just sooo good at soaking up nutrients but probly working too well atm

I grew caulerpa racemosa for 20 years. I would not worry about it, except as a potential bad pest to get into the main tank. It is more efficient than chaetomorpha, IME.

The normal variant never did that in my system regardless of light schedule, and the a variant called something like peltatta (cups as opposed to round balls) did sporulate several times with no apparent harm to the tank.

dvgyfresh · Mar 23, 2021

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
I grew caulerpa racemosa for 20 years. I would not worry about it, except as a potential bad pest to get into the main tank. It is more efficient than chaetomorpha, IME.

The normal variant never did that in my system regardless of light schedule, and the a variant called something like peltatta (cups as opposed to round balls) did sporulate several times with no apparent harm to the tank.

Thank you, I have noticed it can out compete dragons breath and chaeto for nitrate / phosphate, it is a weed lol does it soak calcium as well? I find I need to dose a bit more calcium since adding caulerpa

Randy Holmes-Farley · Mar 23, 2021

dvgyfresh said:
Thank you, I have noticed it can out compete dragons breath and chaeto for nitrate / phosphate, it is a weed lol does it soak calcium as well? I find I need to dose a bit more calcium since adding caulerpa

It uses no calcium or alk or magnesium.

blasterman · Mar 23, 2021

Food grade sodium nitrate is cheap and you can get it from Amazon. What i use to raise nitrate.

Not sure why you people insist on buying this stuff pre diluted in water and getting ripped off. You must spend hours talking to Indian call centers getting scammed.

dvgyfresh · Mar 23, 2021

blasterman said:
Food grade sodium nitrate is cheap and you can get it from Amazon. What i use to raise nitrate.

Not sure why you people insist on buying this stuff pre diluted in water and getting ripped off. You must spend hours talking to Indian call centers getting scammed.

Thanks for the tip , are you trying to tell me my Nigerian friend doesn’t have 42 million dollars?!