Can’t raise nitrates - white slo

[Dramsfish]

Nitrates won’t rise, slime from bacteria bloom.

I can’t seem to get the nitrates to rise, currently sitting at 0.0 or 0.03 and dosing to try and raise them. As I slowly get them up to about 0.05 the tank breaks out with a bacterial bloom that causes white smile to grow rapidly and clog the filter. Constant dosing of nitrates seems to slow the slime but still can’t seem to get them to rise to desired levels and slime free

I’m not dosing carbon. PO4 is steady at 0.04 all tests being done in a Hanna PH checker and cross checked with new batch of reagent.

 

[Dan_P]

Nitrates won’t rise, slime from bacteria bloom.

I can’t seem to get the nitrates to rise, currently sitting at 0.0 or 0.03 and dosing to try and raise them. As I slowly get them up to about 0.05 the tank breaks out with a bacterial bloom that causes white smile to grow rapidly and clog the filter. Constant dosing of nitrates seems to slow the slime but still can’t seem to get them to rise to desired levels and slime free

I’m not dosing carbon. PO4 is steady at 0.04 all tests being done in a Hanna PH checker and cross checked with new batch of reagent.

Are you sure the slime is a bacteria bloom.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

What exactly are you dosing?

 

[Dramsfish]

N

Are you sure the slime is a bacteria bloom.

Not 100% sure, from all the research I have done its most likely that / some form of heterotrophic bacteria.

Currently not dosing anything apart from some Iodine & Nitrates as levels are low. If anything this seems to help reduce it.

One of the other threads seem to have the same issue and found a solution will try this..

I can't raise my nitrates

Been a while since I've updated this. The fist and easiest thing I wanted to try was just raising nitrates. I bought a bottle of Brightwell NeoNitro. While I was waiting for the bottle to be delivered, I noticed my return flow was super low...like barely flowing. So I decided to pull my return...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Since there's no limit to how much nitrate one can dose, and nitrate dosing seems to reduce the slime, I'd just dose more.