HELP! Super low nitrates

starrynight99 · May 5, 2023

Hi everyone, I have a 4 month old 1000 litre (200 plus gallon) salt water tank.

After the initial cycle, (Dr Tim's ammonia and one and only), I achieved nitrates up to about 2.

For the last 2 months, I have struggled to see any nitrates on our red sea testing kit.

Current parameters are:

Alk-8
calcium-450
Magnesium-1350
salinity 1.025
phosphate-0.03-0.08 Hanna
Nitrate-0
Ammonia- 0

I only have 5 smallish fish in 1000 litres and about 15 corals (LPS and softies). Just started doing 10 percent water change every week (nitrates were an issue before water changing started). Fish are happy, corals are also pretty good so far. I feed 3 times a day (pellets, and 2 x frozen food).

My question is, how do I increase the nitrate?

I'm planning on buying a blue tang and blonde naso tang in a few weeks.
Turned skimmer off overnight

Do I need to dose neonitro or will my nitrates improve when I add more fish?

Thanks!

Randy Holmes-Farley · May 5, 2023

Feeding more now would be a first step, but dosing nitrate is a fine plan if that can't work.

BaliReefBox · May 5, 2023

feed more and stock up

starrynight99 · May 5, 2023

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
Feeding more now would be a first step, but dosing nitrate is a fine plan if that can't work.

Thanks Randy. I already feed 3 times a day, should I still feed more?

Poseidon03 · May 5, 2023

I feed 4 times a day and a lot of food in my 240. It is still low stocking and mostly tangs, but I cannot get a reading of nitrate in my tank either (SPS dominate). I recommend you start dosing neonitro.

This is the method I used.

Dose to get 3ppm and then dose .5ppm per day. Test a week later. If your nitrates are still at 0, dose back up to 3ppm and start adding 1ppm per day and test a week later. Keep going up by .5ppm per day until you can find the balance. With this, you will have to test weekly for now on or your nitrates can race away quickly. The reason you start at .5ppm is that even if your tank absorbs 0 nitrates that whole week, your tank will only be at 6.5ppm after the week (3ppm from initial dose and 3.5ppm from .5ppm per day for 7 days).

I currently dose 2.5ppm per day and can keep my nitrates around 10ppm. I adjust my dosage weekly due to macroalgae growth and such. I tested a week without macroalgae and my nitrates dropped from 14.5 to 1.5 in a week. The reason I use macro is for the phosphate export. I test my nitrates weekly, but the easiest way I can tell my nitrates are getting low is by all consumption. My alk consumption will go away down when my nitrates are low (love my trident). I also don't get much from my skimmer. I do have it autodump into a 5gal bucket, but I haven't emptied or cleaned out my skimmer head in a while.

starrynight99 · May 5, 2023

Thank you! Is there any severe consequences if i don’t dose neonitro for another 3 weeks? I’m going on holidays and don’t want to dose it without monitoring….

Poseidon03 · May 5, 2023

starrynight99 said:
Thank you! Is there any severe consequences if i don’t dose neonitro for another 3 weeks? I’m going on holidays and don’t want to dose it without monitoring….

How long is your vacation? Is it for 3 weeks? No nitrate can cause decreased health in corals. If your vacation is for 3 weeks, I'd dose to where nitrates will raise by .5ppm per day. Worst case, if nothing fails, is you come back and your nitrates are at 10.5 after 3 weeks. You do risk pump failure though, so it is a risk you'll have to weigh in.