Where have my nutrients gone?

[PotatoPig]

So my tank has typically run at about:

Nitrate: 20-40
Phosphates: 0.2-0.4

Around Feb I started dosing lanthanum in small doses to stabilize and bring down phosphates, then suddenly they stopped rising (so I stopped dosing) and seem to hold at 0.05, which is nice but odd. Test is Hanna.

Then today I tested nitrates for the first time in a couple weeks and there at, or very close to, zero. So I promptly dosed some. Test is API, but it’s the same as I’ve always used, so even if off should be consistently off. Did two tests to make sure o hadn’t mixed up the bottles or something stupid.

I skim, a bit, but it’s a dry skim so shouldn’t be removing excessive nutrients, I don’t have much algae in the DT (green powder on the glass mostly), I’m more lax about filter sock changes than I should be, not running carbon in this time either, have a very small amount of chaeto in the fuge, and coral biomass is not huge.

Only change from baseline is a slight increase in lightning power and food is now mostly mysis rather than TDO pellets due to a QT I’m running that seems to prefer mysis.

Does mysis have that much less nutrient content? Like, I’m putting in more than my fish eat at each feeding.

 

[ReefingDreams]

Pellet food is a much more sense food and typically contains much higher nitrates. Take your filter socks offline and retest in a week. I'd keep the skimmer running for PH benefits.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

As organisms grow they consume more, and it might be as simple as that.

I'm not an expert on mysis, but I'd feed more than just that.