Does feeding your fish help stabilize nitrate and phosphate?

[Porcupine Reefer]

Originally I only fed my fish once every two days, for a while my nitrate is stable at 5 ppm but my phosphate struggles to stay stable going from .25 down to zero. I have been dosing bright well's Neo nitro and Neo phos at 5 ml daily because I want the nitrate to go to 10 ppm and for phos to stay at .25, so far the nitrate stays at 5 ppm and phos stays at zero. should I feed my fish more often to bring up the levels? if so how many times should I feed them? my tank is a 125 gallon and the current live stock is two clown fish, blue hippo tang, flame angel, one pajama cardinal and a snowflake eel.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

I feed my fish 3-4 times per day, I like feeding them and they like to eat. I don't think its good to try to control nutrients through feeding, the fish need to eat despite what the test result shows. More or less filtration or nutrient dosing is a better path IMO

 

[Uncle99]

If phosphate is falling, then I’d just bump that.
Nitrate at 5ppm and stable is perfect, leave that alone.

You can make feeding changes but slowly and over months.

Is a bit odd for phosphate to zero out. Is that .25ppm a Hanna check?

Most others are not fine enough and show either zero (clear) or .25ppm (super faint blue) and can lead the reefer in the wrong direction, or struggle to fix something, not broken.

As long as your sure, just bump it, it will stop at one point.

 

[Subsea]

Originally I only fed my fish once every two days, for a while my nitrate is stable at 5 ppm but my phosphate struggles to stay stable going from .25 down to zero. I have been dosing bright well's Neo nitro and Neo phos at 5 ml daily because I want the nitrate to go to 10 ppm and for phos to stay at .25, so far the nitrate stays at 5 ppm and phos stays at zero. should I feed my fish more often to bring up the levels? if so how many times should I feed them? my tank is a 125 gallon and the current live stock is two clown fish, blue hippo tang, flame angel, one pajama cardinal and a snowflake eel.

Step up the feeding to the fish.

How often and how much do you feed the eel?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Most of the N and P in fish foods ends up in the water as ammonia/nitrate and phosphate. Thus, one can raise these both by feeding more, but that does not necessarily mean it is the best or cheapest way to do so.

I dose ammonium bicarbonate to keep up nitrate.

 

[sgdnycct]

Originally I only fed my fish once every two days, for a while my nitrate is stable at 5 ppm but my phosphate struggles to stay stable going from .25 down to zero. I have been dosing bright well's Neo nitro and Neo phos at 5 ml daily because I want the nitrate to go to 10 ppm and for phos to stay at .25, so far the nitrate stays at 5 ppm and phos stays at zero. should I feed my fish more often to bring up the levels? if so how many times should I feed them? my tank is a 125 gallon and the current live stock is two clown fish, blue hippo tang, flame angel, one pajama cardinal and a snowflake eel.

You’re slowly starving your fish unless they are managing to get food from the tank. Your stocking levels are low for a large tank so maybe you’ve been lucky.

Eels are different but those other fish need a variety of food.m at frequent intervals. You shouldn’t control nutrients but feeding your fish less. At least start feeding them daily and see how your N and P do. Feeding should increase your levels and also, more importantly get your fish some nutrition.

 

[Red_Beard]

Feeding more will definitely add more N and P, but like the others mentioned, feeding the fish to keep them healthy and controlling nutrients separately is going to be the best method. Mine are on an auto feeder and get pellets 2x a day, a full sheet of nori once or twice a week, and frozen cubes in the evening. I, like Randy use ammonium bicarbonate (with urea) to keep nitrates up, but since i feed a lot of pellets, my phosphates stay kind of high (.3 ish) and i occasionally dose lanthanum chloride to keep them from climbing.