Reef tank balance questions

[rja]

So my tank has been up for a few months now and I am trying to coax it into nutrient balance. So far I’ve had very consistent detectable NO3 which is awesome, all month ive tested 5ppm regardless of no water changes. I’ve done 3 since I set my tank up. My only thing is that I have a handful of LPS and now about 4 square inches of Montipora. So I am worried about losing alk, ca, and mg while not getting enough NO3 to constitute a water change. For fear of bottoming out my NO3 and PO4 and causing dinos. Should I dose all for reef? I need a bit of guidance here because I’m always wary of adding anything to the tank.

 

[vetteguy53081]

So my tank has been up for a few months now and I am trying to coax it into nutrient balance. So far I’ve had very consistent detectable NO3 which is awesome, all month ive tested 5ppm regardless of no water changes. I’ve done 3 since I set my tank up. My only thing is that I have a handful of LPS and now about 4 square inches of Montipora. So I am worried about losing alk, ca, and mg while not getting enough NO3 to constitute a water change. For fear of bottoming out my NO3 and PO4 and causing dinos. Should I dose all for reef? I need a bit of guidance here because I’m always wary of adding anything to the tank.

Assure you’re not getting false readings
What test kits are you using?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

How big of water changes do you do?

If nitrate is really 5 ppm, a normal water change will not drive it too low.

 

[Cell]

Have you been measuring alk/ca/mg to know if they need to be dosed?

 

[Arego]

The only advice I can give is slow down. Numbers don't matter if you can't keep them relatively stable for months to 6 months at a time with little variation using whatever your choice for replenishment is. The more corals you add that need alk and cal the harder it's going to be as more nutrients are used daily by some vs others, including Coraline which itself can suck up copious amounts of calcium/alk.

Until you get a hold of the baseline needs and keeping it stable then it's easier to keep up and not encounter things bottoming out before they were solid stable to begin with.

This wasn't what I wanted to hear but until I got the basics stable things just kept dying randomly. Hope this helps, I wish I learned this years ago, oh well.

Hope everything works out for you

 

[rja]

Assure you’re not getting false readings
What test kits are you using?

Salifert

 

[rja]

Have you been measuring alk/ca/mg to know if they need to be dosed?

Tested today, alk is 10, mg is 1260, ca is 450 (salifert), these are nearly the exact readings i got last weekend… probably over-thinking it all— when i see a dip in these readings ill just change 10% of my water with red sea coral pro salt… should keep everything super consistent.

My testing has shown me that the big three elements wont just simply deplete overnight but it’s a gradual process (?) that I should simply keep an eye on via testing ~weekly and my single source of replenishment should come from high quality salt + RODI water changes.

 

[Timfish]

Welcome to the hobby! There's a lot more going on in our systems than just nitrates, phosphates, calcium, alkalinity and magnesium so I'd be doing consistant water changes irregardless of test results for the parameters you're looking at. As you're new to reefing I would encourage you to test weekly to get an idea of how parameters can change independantly and to get an idea of how fast or slow they can change as your animals grow. Water changes may keep up with some parameters initially but as your corals grow that may not tbe the case and you need to be ready to deal with variables independantly. I would also encourage you to check out these links to get a better understanding of the microbial and nutrient processes or cycles going on in your system:

Aquabiomic's article is a good start to understand how live rock will help establish a healthy microbiome

Establishing a Healthy Microbiome in a New Aquarium Using Live Rock

Studying the effects of live rock in a newly established aquarium shows that high-quality live rock promotes the rapid establishment of an effective biological filter and a microbial community similar to those found in mature reef tanks.

www.reef2reef.com

Here's some links by scientists studying reef ecosystems you might find informative:

"Coral Reefs in the Microbial Seas" This video compliments Rohwer's book of the same title (Paper back is ~$20, Kindle is ~$10), both deal with the conflicting roles of the different types of DOC in reef ecosystems. While there is overlap bewteen his book and the video both have information not covered by the other and together give a broader view of the complex relationships found in reef ecosystems

Changing Seas - Mysterious Microbes

Nitrogen cycling in hte coral holobiont

BActeria and Sponges

Maintenance of Coral Reef Health (refferences at the end)

Optical Feedback Loop in Colorful Coral Bleaching

Richard Ross What's up with phosphate"