SPS and Nitrate! Where do you keep it?

[gugpuccio]

Thanks for that there are lots of ways to run reefs, all different levels of no3 and po4 that's what makes this all work as 10 of nitrates in my tank may make corals bright and yours brown.

Totally agree! 10 ppm no3 may be too much for a reef tank, especially if heavy loaded with fishes and young. I think a well established tank with a stable bacterial population can work with 20 or 40 no3 and still have bright colors and wonderful grow rate! The main parameter to look at is actually coral health and coloration. Not numbers. Of course for newcomers it's easier to have numbers to aim to. I think 5 ppm no3 and 0.03 po4 is a good starting point. it also depends on the type of reef. A soft + lps only tank may gain growth and health from a "dirty" tank. An sps dominant should be kept at 5 ppm no3, in my opinion, until the system is rock stable and then it could be raised to try to gain different or better coloration!

 

[HotRocks]

Good point. Well looking at NSW levels anything over 1 would be high. In aquaria I feel there’s ill effects(browning corals, algae growth) when it’s higher than 10.
My smaller system has higher nutrients(40, 0.1) and things are noticeably much more brown and don’t look as healthy as my lower nutrient 90. My husbandry is identical and both tanks are ran on kessils with similar spectrums.

Yeah that makes sense, and when people ask questions or are having fish problems, and say they have high nitrate I don't know what that means. If I say my nitrate is high on my SPS system it might be 20

If my nitrate is high in my RSR750 it might be north of 100 ;Blackeye

 

[GoVols]

I don’t test nitrates or phosphates. I imagine they are pretty high as I feed a lot. My SPS all look great though. Good color and good extension.

I still do a 18% water change and simmer 1/4 of Rowaphas. Rowa is the only chemical media that I use.

When I need to clean the glass more often, then I re-charge the Rowa's reactor.

Dope in a lot of Reef Energy during the week. It's like protection to me and keeps up organics up in the reef.

 

[Hemmdog]

I still do a 18% water change and simmer 1/4 of Rowaphas. Rowa is the only chemical media that I use.

When I need to clean the glass more often, then I re-charge the Rowa's reactor.

Dope in a lot of Reef Energy during the week. It's like protection to me and keeps up organics up in the reef.

I love reef energy too, that stuff is magic.

 

[bar|none]

Has anyone done a Triton NDOC test?

I ask because of the comments on No3 vs Organics. I just got my first back and all my params NO3 and P were great but Total Nitrogen was red.

I feel like I have changed things since then by adding more cleanup crew and things changed from lots of algae to very little to none. I only have one fish.

We can measure a lot of params but this seems like an invisible parameter.

I'm also not sure how to read the test.

Screenshot attached.

Also here is the help comment from the test.


"""""""""""""
We have found an elevated level of Nitrogen.

This can have the following disadvantages for your aquarium:

- May increase the chances of Cyanobacteria
- May favour nuisance algae growth
- Can lead to darkening of coral colours
If you use the TRITON method:

1. Increase the photoperiod over the algae refugium (do not exceed 14 hours illumination), check performance of algae light (we recommend T5 lighting)
2. If you are not yet using TRITON BioBase and your TOC is in the lower range, you can start with the dosage

If you use a different system:

Consider revising your chosen filtration method.

Please contact us for further support on [email protected]
""""""""""""

 

[HotRocks]

Yeah, Kyle
My reef was great, but looked for greener pastures by going ULNS with NSW parameters.

Ultra low phos. and nitrates

Had those pastel looking acros for an while.

But,
Could not hold that thin of an line for the long haul, and went into dinos. Then I did the wrong thing and made more water changes. Was like adding gas on a fire.

Live and learn, big time feeder now...

I can't find it, but I will always remember those two Reef Masters articles.
All were some of the finest reefers in the world.

Some ran low nitrates some 40ppm.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it"


Great thread!!

I am totally with you on the if it ain't broke don't fix it factor. I have also had to learn very quickly the patience it takes to maintain acros/SPS. I always want to panic as soon as I see one coral change!

You know me and my fish disease nerdiness. So all of my frags had to go through a fallow period bla bla. Well that was one heck of a challenge within itself and I had to dose nitrate and phosphate in order to keep them alive. I had pastel acros for sure then. Coloring up nicely now that they are in a system with fish and nutrients. I may reduce my fuge photoperiod a bit more and let the nitrate creep up just touch here in a few weeks.

 

[Punchanello]

I have found in my tank that -

High lighting and low Po4 and No2 (like undetectable or bottomed out) causes paling and often death. In these conditions amino acids helped.

High lighting, higher nutrient like No3 at 5+ and Po4 above .03 seems to produce really nice colour and the corals seem happier. Amino acids did nothing really that I could tell.

Lower lighting, and nutrients well above No3 at 5 and Po4 above .03 seems to cause some browning.

I simply haven't locked in what works for growth as mine has been steady and slow at best. I've never seen anything like the 'explosive' growth some people talk about. I think it might have to do with where I run my alk but I've not found that combination yet.

 

[HotRocks]

Has anyone done a Triton NDOC test?

I ask because of the comments on No3 vs Organics. I just got my first back and all my params NO3 and P were great but Total Nitrogen was red.

I feel like I have changed things since then by adding more cleanup crew and things changed from lots of algae to very little to none. I only have one fish.

We can measure a lot of params but this seems like an invisible parameter.

I'm also not sure how to read the test.

Screenshot attached.

Also here is the help comment form the test.


"""""""""""""
We have found an elevated level of Nitrogen.

This can have the following disadvantages for your aquarium:

- May increase the chances of Cyanobacteria
- May favour nuisance algae growth
- Can lead to darkening of coral colours
If you use the TRITON method:

1. Increase the photoperiod over the algae refugium (do not exceed 14 hours illumination), check performance of algae light (we recommend T5 lighting)
2. If you are not yet using TRITON BioBase and your TOC is in the lower range, you can start with the dosage

If you use a different system:

Consider revising your chosen filtration method.

Please contact us for further support on [email protected]
""""""""""""

Very Interesting, I need to order one of those test kits and send it out for fun. I have only sent out a triton ICP-OES Test.

 

[bar|none]

Very Interesting, I need to order one of those test kits and send it out for fun. I have only sent out a triton ICP-OES Test.

Do you have any idea how to interpret my results? I'm kind of confused on what they mean.

 

[EmdeReef]

All else being equal, I think there’s a day and night in growth and coloration of frags in lower nutrients vs. high. I don’t know that there’s a magical number to chase but something around NSW value slightly higher (can’t say how much) is probably a good idea to target.

That said don’t do what I did recently

Some corals adapt well to higher nutrients and don’t seem to be bothered at all. But IME when adding new frags the odds are far better if your nitrate and phosphate are barely detectable.

I overfeed, overstock and have relatively high N (likely 40+ no idea I’m too lazy to do dilution) my PO4 hits as high as 0.6-7...

I’m basing my opinion on my frag tanks which were always very low on nutrients (no fish). The corals that have taken off in my current tank are doing great but I’ve lost lots of frags. It’s very possibly due to other issues but ca alk and mg were always the same between my DT and frag tanks and quite frankly alk has always been much much more stable in my DT - Alkatronic, khg vs.irregular manual test...

I’ve also seen some beautiful tanks of friends who run high nitrate and don’t seem to have any issues. It’s hard to tell unless someone is willing to share their diligent tank logs which show losses and issues faced and is also running parallel systems. At the end of the day all our tanks are big graveyards of corals and fish but all people have a tendency to overlook that and focus on successes and then attribute it to whatever makes sense.

In sum, I may be completely wrong about my thinking about nitrates - I haven’t been diligent enough keeping notes.

Most famous example of a high nitrate/phosphate tank on this forum would be @Thales and his tank looks amazing.

 

[HotRocks]

I've been running 25-35ppm recently, and my corals are still all colored up. I think the coloring up has more to do with alkalinity (or general parameter) stability than directly nitrate levels. That being said, for all of the hurrah of moderate nitrates with SPS these days, my old biocube had excellent color and growth under DIY LEDs with 0 nitrate and 0 phosphate with an oversized skimmer and no algae growth. I really think the key is stability, then altitude of levels.

I know they say stability Is key. I know some people that have color exploding in tanks, that dose two part manually, once daily (2 DKH worth!). I run a dosing pump for my 2 part and have tested throughout the day before and don't get much more than a .1-.2dkh swing. So to me there has to be more to the puzzle. That is just me in my own little world thinking out loud.

 

[HotRocks]

All else being equal, I think there’s a day and night in growth and coloration of frags in lower nutrients vs. high. I don’t know that there’s a magical number to chase but something around NSW value slightly higher (can’t say how much) is probably a good idea to target.

That said don’t do what I did recently

Some corals adapt well to higher nutrients and don’t seem to be bothered at all. But IME when adding new frags the odds are far better if your nitrate and phosphate are barely detectable.

I overfeed, overstock and have relatively high N (likely 40+ no idea I’m too lazy to do dilution) my PO4 hits as high as 0.6-7...

I’m basing my opinion on my frag tanks which were always very low on nutrients (no fish). The corals that have taken off in my current tank are doing great but I’ve lost lots of frags. It’s very possibly due to other issues but ca alk and mg were always the same between my DT and frag tanks and quite frankly alk has always been much much more stable in my DT - Alkatronic, khg vs.irregular manual test...

I’ve also seen some beautiful tanks of friends who run high nitrate and don’t seem to have any issues. It’s hard to tell unless someone is willing to share their diligent tank logs which show losses and issues faced and is also running parallel systems. At the end of the day all our tanks are big graveyards of corals and fish but all people have a tendency to overlook that and focus on successes and then attribute it to whatever makes sense.

In sum, I may be completely wrong about my thinking about nitrates - I haven’t been diligent enough keeping notes.

Most famous example of a high nitrate/phosphate tank on this forum would be @Thales and his tank looks amazing.

Yes, @Thales runs phosphate way up there too and definitely has a beauty to show for it!

 

[Nicholas Dushynsky]

I know they say stability Is key. I know some people that have color exploding in tanks, that dose two part manually, once daily (2 DKH worth!). I run a dosing pump for my 2 part and have tested throughout the day before and don't get much more than a .1-.2dkh swing. So to me there has to be more to the puzzle. That is just me in my own little world thinking out loud.

When I first started with my digitata i started with kalkwasser in my ato then when growth took off, it was consuming 1.5dkh per day so had to get a doser as manually dosing was a pain. But I'm back on kalk now as I lost my digi to 0 phosphates.

 

[HotRocks]

Do you have any idea how to interpret my results? I'm kind of confused on what they mean.

I am not an expert by any means at reading their tests, and not familiar with this, but here is what I found upon a google search:

TNb - Total Nitrogen Bound. The total nitrogen bound (TNb) defines the total pollution of water by nitrogen compounds. It is an analytical parameter for water and is specified in mg/l. The pollution of nitrogen can appear in form of ammonia, ammonium salts, nitrites, nitrates and organic nitrogen compounds.

That being said your Nitrate was 7mg/l which is just fine I think. Someone with more knowledge than me will have to elaborate on the Total Nitrogen Bound. Also keep in mind Triton Compares all test results to NSW, so even though they show red it doesn't mean your tank is about to crash

@Randy Holmes-Farley can we get your input on this please.

 

[Hemmdog]

I know they say stability Is key. I know some people that have color exploding in tanks, that dose two part manually, once daily (2 DKH worth!). I run a dosing pump for my 2 part and have tested throughout the day before and don't get much more than a .1-.2dkh swing. So to me there has to be more to the puzzle. That is just me in my own little world thinking out loud.

This is a great topic. I feel like stability is very important but there are those outliers that make me question everything lol. Maybe they are low key running KH directors.. lol.

 

[GoVols]

Side Bar:

Over the best year, my Akatronic (V3) paired up with my cal reactor, keeps the dkh within an .3 alk swing 24/7, and that has made a difference too.

To me alk monitor contollers are more about 24 hour stability and has nothing to do about being lazy.

 

[fishface NJ]

approx 15 and 350. Last year my tank was near 0 and I eventually developed dinoflagellates not knowing that would happen.

 

[HotRocks]

Side Bar:

Over the best year, my Akatronic (V3) paired up with my cal reactor, keeps the dkh within an .3 alk swing 24/7, and that has made a difference too.

To me alk monitor contollers are more about 24 hour stability and has nothing to do about being lazy.

I just can't decide what to do in regards to monitoring.

You have the trident (that you can't get easily).

Kh director.

Mindstream.

Alkatronic.

Best bang for your buck is probably the trident. If you already run an Apex. Which I do.

The mindstream has killer features but has the monthly service charge.

I already have 3 spare heads on one of my GHL dosers so the director would be the cheapest option for me but then again I like the fact that trident gives you calcium and mag as well.

So I'm completely torn I guess is what I'm saying. I don't think it's a lazy thing at all Freddie. Added stability and the benefit of knowing much more about your tank and what is going on whether you are home or not.

 

[Hemmdog]

I just can't decide what to do in regards to monitoring.

You have the trident (that you can't get easily).

Kh director.

Mindstream.

Alkatronic.

Best bang for your buck is probably the trident. If you already run an Apex. Which I do.

The mindstream has killer features but has the monthly service charge.

I already have 3 spare heads on one of my GHL dosers so the director would be the cheapest option for me but then again I like the fact that trident gives you calcium and mag as well.

So I'm completely torn I guess is what I'm saying. I don't think it's a lazy thing at all Freddie. Added stability and the benefit of knowing much more about your tank and what is going on whether you are home or not.

I’m going to go with mindstream I think. The potassium test was the kicker for me.

 

[rushbattle]

I’m going to go with mindstream I think. The potassium test was the kicker for me.

I have been waiting for someone to point out how little fun it is to test K with hobby test kits. Just the cleaning of the vials afterwards makes it worth paying for Mindstream. I’d pay someone $10 a month just to test K a few times. I got caught doing water changes with hw marine mix that had the KCl left out of the mix. Killed all sorts of corals until I got out the K test kit.