High nitrates or not

[kennedpa]

Stop chasing your nitrates. Learn what your phosphates are, and then slowly - as with everything else, over a month or two control your NO3 with NOPX/skimming without stripping your tank of phosphates (0 PO4 is also bad). Medias and drastic changes by doing large water changes is only going to mess with other parameters and cause larger than desired changes. If you don't have a skimmer as part of your nutrient export methods get one, and eventually you hopefully wont need to even run it (or at least run it 24 hours a day) as you learn how to balance appropriate input for feeding without starving, and output (export) methods to match.

Your NO3 may very well be that high. I use the nitrate pro kit at various level of dilutions and it works great as long as you are in the middle of the color ranges. Towards the end of the spectrum (4 and 0.25) resolving those colors is difficult. You can use any dilution you like. Right now I make a 8X dilution (2 ml reef water - 14 ml RODI). 16 total volume, 2 of it is reef, 18/2 = 8X dilution. When I get 2 ppm I know my actual number is 2 ppm X 8X dilution = 16 ppm (My results today).

If I were you, I would make a couple different dilutions.
Reef - RODI
1ml in 9ml = 10X diltuion
2ml in 8ml = 5X dilution
5ml in 5ml = 2X dilution
10ml in 0ml = 0X dilution

Take 1 ml of each and run the test. Multiply that result using the High range scale by the dilution factor of the solution (IE 10X, 5X, 2X, or if it is the 10ML in 0ml (no dilution) then the high range section is your result).

You can also get stump remover or another KNO3 potassium nitrate source and make reference solutions for testing the test kit itself. I know that your kit is not wrong, you might just still be out of range. I had an old 90 with SPS doing well that I never tested and one day I found out they were actually almost 100 ppm. All our stuff was perfectly fine.

I'd bet the Red Sea kit is off for some reason Looking at those tanks, I don't believe the 64 ppm nitrate, but I could buy the 5.5 ppm measurement.

It's not about the levels. It's about how fast they get there and how fast they go away. My tank runs NO3 in the 20's and all my SPS/LPS/zoa's love it. As far as you Hollywood struggling, mine loves it. I would wonder if you have something else off kilter, new placement, or a recent change. Mines burried and growing up the glass right now. It was stinging too much stuff - finally moving into the grow out room this week!

JME, but 60 nitrates isn't going to kill anything, you'd just not get great colors. Euphilia & zoas would be perfectly happy. But I would get another test to confirm.

Mikey P would disagree!!! Richer colors come out with nitrates - unlike pale zeo systems. Read this article on R2R https://www.reef2reef.com/ams/tank-parameters-of-some-masters.263/

I agree that if NO3 is high you have to have the right balance for NO4. A lot of the best aquariums I have seen there is a large fish population that is heavily feed. This results in high NO3 and NO4, but is balanced and mature. Light intensity and alkinity also has to be accounted for esp. in sps tank. This is not an easy hobby i.e. there are many ways to succeed or fail.

What is NO4?

 

[K100286]

Sorry, PO4

 

[kennedpa]

I thought so, was just making sure you weren't leaning towards NH4 - cause' things be dead then lol.

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

I was wondering the same thing!

 

[kennedpa]

Have you done anything to your stunner? Added carbon or anything? What's wrong with it?

I can't get mine to not grow. I had a one eye chip that is pretty big now and it's only been a month and a half. ish.

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

Have you done anything to your stunner? Added carbon or anything? What's wrong with it?

I can't get mine to not grow. I had a one eye chip that is pretty big now and it's only been a month and a half. ish.

I did nothing to them directly. I had one colony that I fragged (accidentally) into 5 or 6 colonies that were growing like WEEDS in low nitrate conditions (<0.5 ppm). As I raised the nitrates, I've lost probably 80% of my Hollywood stunners. All other corals are fine. The weirdest part is that 3 or 4 frags are affected significantly, while 1 or 2 were barely affected or not affected at all. ALL were iodine dipped for infections, but only some responded.

Very weird situation...I really can't figure it out at all.

 

[kennedpa]

Hmm. That is strange. I just started doing combined dips to really make sure things are good as to not infect my other stuff since there's so much crammed right now into a small tank.

Read some great info from people lately. For suspected bacterial infections I now dip in coral Rx + furan-2. For new coral I dip in Bayer, wash, dip in coral RX + furan-2, wash, place. Maybe try furan-2. It's cheap and goes long way. A fellow R2R had stn issues and furan-2 stopped it. Must have been infection related. It was impressive. It's the reason I now have it on hand and put it in my dipping protocol.

 

[kennedpa]

What's your phosphate been doing?

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

Hmm. That is strange. I just started doing combined dips to really make sure things are good as to not infect my other stuff since there's so much crammed right now into a small tank.

Read some great info from people lately. For suspected bacterial infections I now dip in coral Rx + furan-2. For new coral I dip in Bayer, wash, dip in coral RX + furan-2, wash, place. Maybe try furan-2. It's cheap and goes long way. A fellow R2R had stn issues and furan-2 stopped it. Must have been infection related. It was impressive. It's the reason I now have it on hand and put it in my dipping protocol.

I dipped in iodine solution...not sure the actual strength, but it looked like iced tea. I'm pretty sure that is strong enough for typical infections.

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

What's your phosphate been doing?

Phosphate is a consistent 0.02-0.04 ppm.

 

[kennedpa]

Never messed with iodine.

Weird. I have no idea. Pandora's box of reefing lol. I just know if my pros is out of wack everything goes nuts. I hope the two grow like weeds and you have a huge colony again soon.

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

Hey, as long as one or two colonies survive, I'm sure things will be okay. Once settled, these chalices grow like weeds!

 

[barrierreef]

Have another confusing question about the Red Pro Nitrate test. Did the low range test and found that my sample was above the 4.00 dark purple color on the color wheel. This prompted me to redo the test using the high range directions. Found the color on the color wheel was very light pink. Comparing this to the card it indicate that the nitrate is below 4. Question is how can the low range indicate dark purple [well over 4 and the low range light pink [well under 4. How do I determine the true nitrate reading? Perhaps I'm not reading the card correctly comparing the low to the high regarding the colors. If anyone can give me some direction on this it would be much appreciated.

 

[kennedpa]

If you dilute to do the high range you have to multiply the result. It's not the result on the card. Figure out what dilution you used, and multiply your actual read on the wheel by that factor. That's your nitrates.

2 ml in 14 ml = 8x dilution.
Result on wheel 0.5 ppm
Actual nitrate is 0.5 ppm X 8 = 16 ppm.

 

[kennedpa]

It's only light pink now because you diluted the nitrate with RO to bring it on scale.

 

[kennedpa]

Have another confusing question about the Red Pro Nitrate test. Did the low range test and found that my sample was above the 4.00 dark purple color on the color wheel. This prompted me to redo the test using the high range directions. Found the color on the color wheel was very light pink. Comparing this to the card it indicate that the nitrate is below 4. Question is how can the low range indicate dark purple [well over 4 and the low range light pink [well under 4. How do I determine the true nitrate reading? Perhaps I'm not reading the card correctly comparing the low to the high regarding the colors. If anyone can give me some direction on this it would be much appreciated.

I have a more detailed explanation at the top of this page.

 

[barrierreef]

Thanks very much kennedpa. Have asked many people about this and never received an answer. Thanks again. Will digest your information and try again today.

 

[gbroadbridge]

I hope you guys have realised by now, that for the Red sea tests you need to leave the caps on the test vials for 9 mins, not leave them open to the air...

The instructions are not particularly clear on this point.

Both the pro and normal kit needs you to leave the caps on. For the pro phosphate you need the caps off. This is clear in the instruction card,

Old thread I know, but this innocent mistake has created many bad readings

 

[MaxTremors]

I used the Red Sea test twice. And got the same. I am following the directions of 1ml of tank water, and 15 of RO. All you do after is add drops, shake for 10 seconds, add a spoon full of powder, shake for 10 seconds and wait 9 min. It slowly over the 9 min turnes deep red. I was so confused because with 64+ nitrates all my corals should be dead, especially my sps. I did not know there was an expiry date but I bout them not long ago.

64ppm won’t kill your corals. Overtime they may not grow and some will slowly die, but it would probably take weeks if not months, and many corals (some lps and most softies) would probably be just fine and still grow.