Why can’t I raise my nutrients???

[MONTANTK]

I know I’ve beaten this discussion to death but I honestly feel like I am at a breaking point. It’s been about a month since my tank started crashing and all my acros are officially gone. In that time I had about 16ppm of nitrate but no phosphate. Started dosing phosphate and nitrates dropped to 0ppm. For almost 2 weeks I have been dosing 1.5ml of NeoPhos and 10ml of NeoNitro. I still have yet to see any reading of nitrate or phosphate and my dinos are getting really bad. I haven’t done any water changes. I’ve been feeding every day and don’t run a skimmer. Tank is 7.4g with about 5lbs of live rock.

I think this is the most defeated I have felt in all my years of reefing. Do I just continue to dose nitrate and phosphate or should I take a different approach?

 

[Cole.mormon]

Try a water change of 3 gal
What brand is the nitrate/phosphate

 

[Rincon_Reefer]

For what it is worth I was having the opposite problem for a bit and have finally started to get it under control.....taking what I was doing wrong and applying it to your situation in reverse....I was feeding reasonably....well not really a lot of frozen misis. Cut back on that (subed in pellets some more) and still had problems but it was better. Then I thought well, maybe it is the reef roids...cut back on that, yep that was a big one but still problems. Realized the biggest problem was the dang nori I was feeding my tang. So....maybe Nori and reef roids will help. I run a skimmer and algae reactor so my nitrates were actually under control but my phosphate was through the roof.

 

[MONTANTK]

Try a water change of 3 gal
What brand is the nitrate/phosphate

I feel as if a water change will be counter productive since they are meant to reduce nutrients. I use Brightwell for nitrate and phosphate

 

[MONTANTK]

For what it is worth I was having the opposite problem for a bit and have finally started to get it under control.....taking what I was doing wrong and applying it to your situation in reverse....I was feeding reasonably....well not really a lot of frozen misis. Cut back on that (subed in pellets some more) and still had problems but it was better. Then I thought well, maybe it is the reef roids...cut back on that, yep that was a big one but still problems. Realized the biggest problem was the dang nori I was feeding my tang. So....maybe Nori and reef roids will help. I run a skimmer and algae reactor so my nitrates were actually under control but my phosphate was through the roof.

I am currently mixing in a similar product to reef roids when I feed. I may look to add pellets though. Someone once recommended that for raising nutrients. It just blows my mind because I have no idea where the nutrients are going. I was expecting to have issues keeping them down

 

[Cole.mormon]

Im saying to raise calcium ect
What are you trying to raise
Nitrate and phosphate?

 

[MONTANTK]

Im saying to raise calcium ect
What are you trying to raise
Nitrate and phosphate?

Yes, I’m trying to raise nitrate and phosphate

 

[Cole.mormon]

Ok

 

[Cole.mormon]

You tried upping the dose?

 

[MONTANTK]

You tried upping the dose?

Yeah I just started upping it today. It just seems like such an aggressive amount to dose for such a small tank with only Zoas. On the nitrate side I’m basically saying I want to increase my No3 at least 20ppm a day

 

[ThePhoReefer]

Have you tried cleaning your tank of any algae. The algae probably sucked all the nutrients you adding. I fully scrape and clean my tank to truest add nutrients for my coral still finding balance after dosing

 

[ThePhoReefer]

Works well for me

 

[1guydude]

Its a 7gal tank. Do the wc. Id do a 50% wc. U dont have any filtration? Feeding flakes and pellets should do it. Stop dosing stuff. Lol.
D

 

[1guydude]

People you are blowing my mind chasing phosphates and nitrates these days. You might as well be testing ph. Lol
D

 

[RobertTheNurse]

What are you using to test?

 

[MONTANTK]

Have you tried cleaning your tank of any algae. The algae probably sucked all the nutrients you adding. I fully scrape and clean my tank to truest add nutrients for my coral still finding balance after dosing

Only other algae is small amount of bubble algae which I picked out and then the usual stuff on the glass

 

[MONTANTK]

What are you using to test?

Hanna checker for Po4 and Red Sea for No3

 

[LeftyReefer]

have you had anybody else confirm these low phosphate readings? a local reefer or trusted LFS perhaps?

seems weird that a nano tank with no skimmer, can have phosphates dosed daily and yet no detectable phosphates....

have you checked your hanna checker ? Does it ever show phosphates? LIke right after dosing or right after feeding?

Saying that, my tank always showed zero or near zero phosphates too, until it was 7/8 months old... then phosphates slowly started to climb to where they now sit at a pretty consistent .06 - .08 ppm. with 24/7 skimming. I assumed the rocks were binding phosphates up until that point.

How old is your tank?

 

[MONTANTK]

have you had anybody else confirm these low phosphate readings? a local reefer or trusted LFS perhaps?

seems weird that a nano tank with no skimmer, can have phosphates dosed daily and yet no detectable phosphates....

have you checked your hanna checker ? Does it ever show phosphates? LIke right after dosing or right after feeding?

Saying that, my tank always showed zero or near zero phosphates too, until it was 7/8 months old... then phosphates slowly started to climb to where they now sit at a pretty consistent .06 - .08 ppm. with 24/7 skimming. I assumed the rocks were binding phosphates up until that point.

How old is your tank?

Tank is around 5 months old right now. Since I purchased the Hanna checker it has never shown phosphates but I had quite a bit of coral in my tank before it crashed so I had just assumed they were using it up since I had barely any algae. Since my sps died I still have no phosphate reading but a bad case of dinos

 

[MONTANTK]

Just as a little update, last night I changed up my rock scape as I figured it was a good time to do so. Finally got a nitrate reading that was off the chart of the low range >4ppm. Didnt bother re testing the high range simply because I was just happy to see nitrate. Also tested phosphate and once again it came up at 0ppm. Tempted to buy a different phosphate kit just to see if my Hanna is working properly