To add or not to add phosphate and nitrate

Skibi · Oct 12, 2018

So little background of my tank it is a Red Sea reefer 250. I run Kalkwasser in the ato and chaeto on opposite light schedule. I’ve been dosing 2ml or nopox and 4ml of reef energy a and b. I feed frozen food 1 a day and reef chili every 2 days. I have 4 fish and 2 shrimp and various snail. I run a protein skimmer 24/7 and also change filter socks every 3 days with a water change once a week of 10%. My question is I have been testing phosphate and nitrate daily and it never goes above 0. I’m using the Hanna checker ultra low and the Red Sea nitrate test kits.

Should I dose nitrate and phosphates in I have Brightwell NeoPhos and neonitrogen just can’t decide because the nopox says to cut dosing if no nitrate and phosphates which I’ve done but it’s not raising? Any thoughts?

Idoc · Oct 12, 2018

Well it seems like you are doing a lot of things to reduce nitrates and phosphates in your system. Now you have them at zero and you want to dose them. How about slowly reducing some of the things you are doing and seeing if those nutrients rise a little before dosing?

I'm kind of in the same boat... zero nitrates and phosphates. I've attempted to reduce skimming to only night time for a few weeks... that didn't do anything, so now I've shut the skimmer off completely and will see how that does after a few weeks. I'm just trying to keep the dosing of things to a minimum for simplicity.

Skibi · Oct 12, 2018

Ya I’ve been trying to follow the Red Sea system so I was trying not to stop dosing nopox but I might have to to get nutrients up. I might try stopping the chaeto see if that helps out. I don’t really want to dose those phosphates and nitrates but I feel like I’m feeding heavy and stuff is still not coming up.

Sean1986 · Oct 12, 2018

Stop no pox before anything else

lapin · Oct 12, 2018

So what does your tank tell you? Everything happy? If so dont do anything different.
If you do need to change things stop nopox first, as stated above. After a few weeks, if that doesnt help, perhaps reduce your light time on the cheato.
The minute you start dosing you are going to change your tanks chemistry. You can have an algae or cyano bloom and create more issues. Right now your corals are used to taking up the amount of nutrients in the tank. If you raise them, odds are they will take weeks to months to adapt to taking in more.

Skibi · Oct 12, 2018

Okay I’ll try stopping the nopox and see how that goes for a week or so. The corals aren’t looking okay ish I just noticed my acans are not looking good shriveled up and my green slimmer has no polyps out right now. But the hammer and birds nest look good along with blue mushroom.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Oct 13, 2018

Unless you are organic carbon dosing specifically to drive bacteria growth to feed corals (a fine idea, but not why most peopel do it), I'd stop the NOPOX.

If you do not stop it and do not dose nutrients (or boost them some other way), you risk dinos and that could be a serious issue.

dwest · Oct 13, 2018

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
Unless you are organic carbon dosing specifically to drive bacteria growth to feed corals (a fine idea, but not why most peopel do it), I'd stop the NOPOX.

If you do not stop it and do not dose nutrients (or boost them some other way), you risk dinos and that could be a serious issue.

For sure you are at real risk for dinos. Agree 100% to stop nopox.

Skibi · Oct 13, 2018

I gotcha I thought that no pox would maintain my nitrates and phosphorus at .02 or so guess I got that wrong lol. So I need to get them up what product would you recommend to do that? Will the Brightwell stuff I have coming be best or something else?

Dan_P · Oct 13, 2018

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
If you do not stop it and do not dose nutrients (or boost them some other way), you risk dinos and that could be a serious issue.

What is the connection between low nitrogen and phosphorous and dinoflagellate growth rate? Sounds counter intuitive.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Oct 13, 2018

Skibi said:
I gotcha I thought that no pox would maintain my nitrates and phosphorus at .02 or so guess I got that wrong lol. So I need to get them up what product would you recommend to do that? Will the Brightwell stuff I have coming be best or something else?

The end concentrations in the tank are a function of the foods you feed, any other export emthods,a dn the amount of NOPOX you add.

If you want a smaller effect, you can dose less. There's nothing that makes it stop at a specific target level.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Oct 13, 2018

Dan_P said:
What is the connection between low nitrogen and phosphorous and dinoflagellate growth rate? Sounds counter intuitive.

It's complicated, but it is a clear empirical result.

Most likely, at higher nutrients, something else outcompets the dinos for a critical other element, such as iron, but at very low nutrients, that competition is reduced or stopped when the other organisms stops growing.

Flippers4pups · Oct 13, 2018

Skibi said:
I gotcha I thought that no pox would maintain my nitrates and phosphorus at .02 or so guess I got that wrong lol. So I need to get them up what product would you recommend to do that? Will the Brightwell stuff I have coming be best or something else?

I would stop water changes for a couple weeks. May be longer. When not doing water changes, I dose elements to compensate (I have quite a few corals, that's why.) when not doing water changes.

Dosing N03 and P04 is subjective to how your corals look and overall health. Having some is needed. Dosing N03 and P04 won't hurt, as long as its around 5-10 ppm N03 and 0.02-3 P04.

Running 0 is a recipe for Dino's.

Skibi · Oct 13, 2018

Thanks for all the replies really helps me out! I think for now not dosing the nopox anymore and I will skip this weeks water change and see what my parameters are doing! I do not want dinos!!! That’s mainly why I started this threading heard nothing of bad news when both nitrate and phosphates are at 0 just wasn’t sure what action to take!

Flippers4pups · Oct 13, 2018

Skibi said:
Thanks for all the replies really helps me out! I think for now not dosing the nopox anymore and I will skip this weeks water change and see what my parameters are doing! I do not want dinos!!! That’s mainly why I started this threading heard nothing of bad news when both nitrate and phosphates are at 0 just wasn’t sure what action to take!

Skipping water changes may help, but may take a great deal of time for changes to happen. Dependant on foods introduced for the change. This approach is not necessarily controllable. Nitrate and phosphate doesn't magically appear without being introduced without a source.

lapin · Oct 13, 2018

Skibi said:
I gotcha I thought that no pox would maintain my nitrates and phosphorus at .02 or so guess I got that wrong lol. So I need to get them up what product would you recommend to do that? Will the Brightwell stuff I have coming be best or something else?

Instead of adding things why not stop the nopox and see how they rise on their own. Feeding will increase them if you have stopped your export mechanism. As suggested, reduce the number of water changes. You should monitor your numbers so you know what the result of your changes are. I always try to not introduce too many variables at once so I know what, did what.

Dan_P · Oct 13, 2018

Is it more complicated than differences in growth curves (see example above used to explain the variation in diatom populations)? I find the struggle to understand dinoflagellate proliferation parallels that to finding an explanation for cyanobacteria proliferation.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Oct 13, 2018

Dan_P said:
Is it more complicated than differences in growth curves (see example above used to explain the variation in diatom populations)? I find the struggle to understand dinoflagellate proliferation parallels that to finding an explanation for cyanobacteria proliferation.

Yes, I think there must be more. The implication from nutrients alone is that even dinos grow more slowly at lower nutrients, so low nutrients cannot cause increased dino growth.

But, the curves do show that other organism growth drops off even faster at low nutrients, so dinos may win because they are better at competing for something. That something might be space only (although that doesn't explain dinos overrunning other organisms, as they can), but many folks report that water changes also encourage dinos and stopping water changes helps, which suggests competition for a thing in the water, not just space.

Dan_P · Oct 13, 2018

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
Yes, I think there must be more. The implication from nutrients alone is that even dinos grow more slowly at lower nutrients, so low nutrients cannot cause increased dino growth.

But, the curves do show that other organism growth drops off even faster at low nutrients, so dinos may win because they are better at competing for something. That something might be space only (although that doesn't explain dinos overrunning other organisms, as they can), but many folks report that water changes also encourage dinos and stopping water changes helps, which suggests competition for a thing in the water, not just space.

It is a parsimonious explanation, but I have so many questions. Below is just a list that I share and do not want you to waste your time addressing my doubts

.

What constitutes a bloom event? How many cells per liter or per square foot of substrate? Is a brown blush a bloom or bubbly stringy mats? Is one aquarist’s dinoflagellate bloom someone else’s ho-hum event?

Is a bloom an increase in cell number (increased growth rate ) or a settling event of existing cells?

Is a bloom one organism or multiple species?

Wouldn’t all ULN systems be plagued by dinoflagellate blooms?

Why do nutrient rich systems have any dinoflagellate blooms?

Culture medium from dinoflagellate growth medium from laboratory cultures inhibit growth of newly inoculated dinoflagellates, even when fresh nutrients are added. Might water changes just be diluting this inhibitory material? (A stretch, I know)

Dinoflagellates may not initially reproduce quickly when the triggering event occurs. The bloom might happens days or weeks later. Associating a water change with a bloom would be difficult.

Dan