High Nitrate and Phosphate

[Uncle99]

Yup, that qualifies as mature!
As soon as my phosphate drops lower than 0.05ppm, corals lose a bit of colour and PE.
Nitrates pinned at 5-10 for years now.

 

[MaTTeD]

I ordered (and BRS shipped) the Tropic Marine Elimi-Phos Rapid and the BRS Bulk GFO. All should get here next week. I'll take it slow and careful and let you all know.

I know my LPS is unhappy (and one SPS has long since died). I presume this to be from the high Phosphate (and reasonably high nitrate). I did some other reading and based on what I see here, I am surprised you all are doing OK with high nutrient levels, especially PO4. My tank has gone through the usual new tank ugly phases (GHA, Dinos, and of course the Cyano), and I'm hoping getting my phosphate under control makes everything happy and I can grow some LPS again. All my other parameters seem OK (I wish my temp was a degree or two cooler, but not looking to add a chiller).

 

[MaxTremors]

A couple things I can think of. I’m guessing you used coralife ‘life rock’ (just because you said it was already purple). If you didn’t seed that with some real live rock, that may be part of the problem (I know some will disagree, but IMO it takes much, much longer to get a stable, diverse, and mature bacterial population without). Also wondering how long you tried NOPOX, it can take a good two months to really start working. I was in sort of the same boat as you, and it took carbon dosing around 8 weeks to start lowering my nitrates (my phosphates have always been really low). So if you didn’t give it at least 3 months, I would try again (the other thing is that you need to continue dosing it even after your nitrates come down, though at a lower dose).

 

[Lost in the Sauce]

Yup, that qualifies as mature!
As soon as my phosphate drops lower than 0.05ppm, corals lose a bit of colour and PE.
Nitrates pinned at 5-10 for years now.

I've got phosguard in sock #1 for about a month now. Bringing it down slowly hopefully, but can't confirm because the levels are still too high to test.

 

[MaTTeD]

A couple things I can think of. I’m guessing you used coralife ‘life rock’ (just because you said it was already purple). If you didn’t seed that with some real live rock, that may be part of the problem (I know some will disagree, but IMO it takes much, much longer to get a stable, diverse, and mature bacterial population without). Also wondering how long you tried NOPOX, it can take a good two months to really start working. I was in sort of the same boat as you, and it took carbon dosing around 8 weeks to start lowering my nitrates (my phosphates have always been really low). So if you didn’t give it at least 3 months, I would try again (the other thing is that you need to continue dosing it even after your nitrates come down, though at a lower dose).

@MaxTremors - I was brand new to reefing when I was getting this set up. This was the expensive live rock from my LFS. I have no visibility as to where they got it from nor what treatments it had. It looked good and I didn't know I could use cheaper rock!

I have been using NOPOX for about 6 weeks (and have continued daily dosing). I knew it didn't work instantly, but I figured by now I would see some improvement in the numbers. I feel a bit more urgency to get the phosphate levels down and then keep a longer term strategy to keep the numbers low and stable.

 

[MaxTremors]

@MaxTremors - I was brand new to reefing when I was getting this set up. This was the expensive live rock from my LFS. I have no visibility as to where they got it from nor what treatments it had. It looked good and I didn't know I could use cheaper rock!

I have been using NOPOX for about 6 weeks (and have continued daily dosing). I knew it didn't work instantly, but I figured by now I would see some improvement in the numbers. I feel a bit more urgency to get the phosphate levels down and then keep a longer term strategy to keep the numbers low and stable.

Was the rock wet or dry when you bought it, and if it was wet, was it teaming with life (visible microfauna like copepods, mini brittle stars, tube worms, asterina stars, etc)?

Unfortunately a lot of LFSes these days are selling dry, painted rock as ‘live rock’ or putting dry rock in a tank of water and calling it ‘live rock’. While the latter might have some life bacterially (and maybe even some microfauna if it’s in an established tank that was seeded with real live rock), it’s not the same thing as real, from the ocean live rock.

 

[MaTTeD]

Was the rock wet or dry when you bought it, and if it was wet, was it teaming with life (visible microfauna like copepods, mini brittle stars, tube worms, asterina stars, etc)?

Unfortunately a lot of LFSes these days are selling dry, painted rock as ‘live rock’ or putting dry rock in a tank of water and calling it ‘live rock’. While the latter might have some life bacterially (and maybe even some microfauna if it’s in an established tank that was seeded with real live rock), it’s not the same thing as real, from the ocean live rock.

It was wet and brought home in water. Once I got it home and into the tank, I noticed some life while my tank was still cycling. Other than the aragonite, which probably didn't include critters, they probably came from the rock. There were definitely a few pods, a brittle worm or two, and an asterina. I think it was good quality live rock... I just do not know where it was before my tank.