What's taking up my nitrates?

[thresher]

My small tank (9 months old/ 17 gallons AIO) is overcrowded with fish...I know this is bad but plan to upgrade soon. I definately overfeed. Over the past 4 months, my nitrates are reading anywhere from 0.5-2. There is little to no problem algae but coral growth seems to be a little slow. Should I be taking any measures to bring up my nitrates? The only reason I can surmise for the lack of nitrates is that I have a decent amount of anaerobic bacteria growth in the marine pure bio balls. The flow in the back chambers of the AIO is low and I believe this may the reason anaerobic bacteria is growing so well. Can anyone confirm this hypothesis?

 

[ZoWhat]

Lots of factors could be leading to lower than expected nitrates:

* your skimmer is exporting no3 very well

* you doing routine water changes at just the right times

* as you had mentioned, you have a good amount of good bacteria (the two types of nitros-bacteria) consuming the no3

Hey, don't complain but ride thst wave! No reason to raise no3 above 5ppm unless you want problems

 

[Nano sapiens]

My small tank (9 months old/ 17 gallons AIO) is overcrowded with fish...I know this is bad but plan to upgrade soon. I definately overfeed. Over the past 4 months, my nitrates are reading anywhere from 0.5-2. There is little to no problem algae but coral growth seems to be a little slow. Should I be taking any measures to bring up my nitrates? The only reason I can surmise for the lack of nitrates is that I have a decent amount of anaerobic bacteria growth in the marine pure bio balls. The flow in the back chambers of the AIO is low and I believe this may the reason anaerobic bacteria is growing so well. Can anyone confirm this hypothesis?

Good, you have enough suitable substrate and proper flow conditions for denitrifying bacteria to flourish as well as enough carbon and phosphate via your feeding to keep them productive.

Many reefers like to run somewhat higher NO3 levels of 5-10 ppm to make sure they don't bottom out. I ran around 1 -2 ppm for years without issues (also a heavy fish load for the size of the aquarium).

 

[Backreefing]

Could be your corals adsorbing the nutrients

 

[ahiggins]

I have the same “problem”. I have nitrates at non detectable limits but a tiny amount of phosphates. Mine stems from lack of bio load though lol I haven’t noticed any issues but I feel your pain.