How do you actually balance Nitrates

[Siberwulf]

So I've been reading these forums for a while now, and posting shortly after I started and I see a lot of the common "I have Dinos!" and "I have GHA!" threads. In my head the culprit is usually boiled down to Nitrate balance. If you suck out too many Nitrates, you're going to risk Dinos. If you have an excess, you get a GHA/Cyano bloom.

This takes me to my current problem: I think I have both? In one corner, I've got some nasty Cyano blooming on the sand bed. In other places, I see Dinos (they are on the sand, go away at night and come back by the end of the day). How do you get into that predicament?

Here's my levels as of this morning:

Salinity: 1.026
NO3: 0ppm (ugh!)
PO4: .04
Ca: 410
Mg: 1340

Now, I did have a pretty icky GHA problem that popped up. I finally got some Red Ogo into my sump, and it ended up bottoming out my NO3. I slightly reduced the photo period in the sump and added a few snails to it (to clean that up). I also started dosing some small measure of NeoNitro to keep NO3 from zero as I was starting to see bleaching of my coraline (Ca/Mg were fine all this time). This NeoNitro looks to have been a tad too much and I've got an ugly Cyano patch forming and my Coraline is kinda covered in brown stuff.

I know my tank isn't "newbie" stage at this point (up and running for 6 months) and I know it's not at the "established" stage either. Is this typical to see this epic battle of bad things all in hopes of the good things somehow coming in at the last minute to save the day?

Here's the Cyano:


Here's some Dinos:


Here they are together!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Perfect nutrient levels do not prevent algae, since both algae and corals need them.

Dinos are a different story, and keep nitrate and phosphate detectable is a good idea for that reason. I'm not sure if what you are seeing now are dinos or not.

Since you show no nitrate, if that is accurate, I'd either dose some sodium nitrate, or feed more.

 

[Macdaddynick1]

So I've been reading these forums for a while now, and posting shortly after I started and I see a lot of the common "I have Dinos!" and "I have GHA!" threads. In my head the culprit is usually boiled down to Nitrate balance. If you suck out too many Nitrates, you're going to risk Dinos. If you have an excess, you get a GHA/Cyano bloom.

This takes me to my current problem: I think I have both? In one corner, I've got some nasty Cyano blooming on the sand bed. In other places, I see Dinos (they are on the sand, go away at night and come back by the end of the day). How do you get into that predicament?

Here's my levels as of this morning:

Salinity: 1.026
NO3: 0ppm (ugh!)
PO4: .04
Ca: 410
Mg: 1340

Now, I did have a pretty icky GHA problem that popped up. I finally got some Red Ogo into my sump, and it ended up bottoming out my NO3. I slightly reduced the photo period in the sump and added a few snails to it (to clean that up). I also started dosing some small measure of NeoNitro to keep NO3 from zero as I was starting to see bleaching of my coraline (Ca/Mg were fine all this time). This NeoNitro looks to have been a tad too much and I've got an ugly Cyano patch forming and my Coraline is kinda covered in brown stuff.

I know my tank isn't "newbie" stage at this point (up and running for 6 months) and I know it's not at the "established" stage either. Is this typical to see this epic battle of bad things all in hopes of the good things somehow coming in at the last minute to save the day?

Here's the Cyano:


Here's some Dinos:


Here they are together!

1. Please show us the FTS and the amount of actual corals you have. 2. Your tank is in a newbie stage still. 3. You can dose nitrates to bring them up. However it’s easier said than done on the new tank like that. In order to dose nitrates in a tank and not get An outbreak, you need the surface of your rock covered with coraline algae, and other things to prevent hair algae or other undesirable organisms from taking a hold. Even then you can’t guarantee that algae won’t grow somewhere, so you will need a very good cleanup crew to keep that in check prior to it becoming an actual problem. You also need ample amount of corals to uptake all that NO3 otherwise you have no use for keeping it high and undesirable things will start consuming it. 4. The reason you have both cyano and gha is due to fluctuations since a new tank cannot handle fluctuations that well. 5. The best way too keep a tank that new is low no3, but feed your fish consistently so that it’s just enough for the corals to uptake. Alternatively, you can dose no3 in a very low amount daily like .03 ppm to keep the no3 supply up without overwhelming the system. That’s what I do in my sps tank.

 

[Spare time]

Cyano seems to be a 0 nitrate and/or elevated phosphate issue. Most tanks do just fine with nitrate between 5-20ppm and phosphate between 0.03-0.1ppm. I find hair algae and similar to be an issue of phosphate rather than nitrate, since algae can use a lot of forms of nitrogen. Nitrate alone never seems to be the cause of algae issues unless it is 0 (and you get cyano).

I realized this after a a Dr Tim interview and then also realizing that every person who has cyano who had me test their water had 0 nitrate and or high phosphates. Logically this makes sense given that they can proliferate without nitrate in the water as they can use nitrogen from the atmosphere.

 

[Siberwulf]

Here's the FTS:

It sounds like I should be dosing a little bit of NO3 (I was dosing up to 2ppm, but feels like I can come down a little off that to target maybe .6ppm, just to ease it)

Perfect nutrient levels do not prevent algae, since both algae and corals need them.

Dinos are a different story, and keep nitrate and phosphate detectable is a good idea for that reason. I'm not sure if what you are seeing now are dinos or not.

Since you show no nitrate, if that is accurate, I'd either dose some sodium nitrate, or feed more.

I am currently feeing 2x a day for these two little clowns. I've got some good detrivores in there (Snail, Crab, Bristles and some Brittles) so I don't see anything really getting left behind. Is there a reason for NaNO3 over NeoNitro? I've been trying to keep Alk up to 8, but that of course drops over time, recently hit 7.4 before I popped a little booster in there.

 

[Siberwulf]

Cyano seems to be a 0 nitrate and/or elevated phosphate issue. Most tanks do just fine with nitrate between 5-20ppm and phosphate between 0.03-0.1ppm. I find hair algae and similar to be an issue of phosphate rather than nitrate, since algae can use a lot of forms of nitrogen. Nitrate alone never seems to be the cause of algae issues unless it is 0 (and you get cyano).

I realized this after a a Dr Tim interview and then also realizing that every person who has cyano who had me test their water had 0 nitrate and or high phosphates. Logically this makes sense given that they can proliferate without nitrate in the water as they can use nitrogen from the atmosphere.

I did see the same thing. I was happy/confused that my PO4 only registered at .04 which to me meant "is ok"

 

[Wyvern]

I overfeed so I have a good deal of Nitrates despite skimming with an OP skimmer and have denitrifying blocks, before WC I was at 30PPM!

My phosphate is low, I only have API at the moment, but it's 0 yellow because I have 3 bags of chemipure blue. It's probably more like .07 if I had to guess, but I'm getting new tests soon.

I had mega Dinos, even with H202 and UV running! Dosing H202 and using "reef food" and phyto, they are much much better, but now I grew an aptasia because reef food is like crack to them.

I'm going to grow that red macro algea, whatever it's called to lower nitrates and feed my foxface when I get him.

 

[Darren in Tacoma]

It's just green still. Keep testing, cleaning algae and doing your maintenance and you will be fine.

It wouldn't hurt to get a few more fish in there too.

 

[Siberwulf]

It's just green still. Keep testing, cleaning algae and doing your maintenance and you will be fine.

It wouldn't hurt to get a few more fish in there too.

Agree on the fish! I've got an order out for a few more QT'd fish from Dr. Reef. Things are slow moving though, unfortunately. I've got a couple purpleback dotties that should be coming in a couple weeks.

 

[Gtinnel]

Are you sure those are dinos? It's not as snotty and bubbly looking as mine were when I had them. It almost looks more like diatoms to me.

 

[homer1475]

Looks more like diatoms to me too. Dino's usually look like snot with bubble in it. That looks more like just a rust color on the sand which looks more like diatoms.

 

[Siberwulf]

Looks more like diatoms to me too. Dino's usually look like snot with bubble in it. That looks more like just a rust color on the sand which looks more like diatoms.

I'm hoping to pop them under the microscope today and take a look. I only went to Dinos because A) Had a bad dino outbreak before and B) they go away at night as soon as the lights go out and come back by the end of the day. I'll reply back!

 

[Siberwulf]

Wanting to bump this up a bit. I did another round of tests this week:

NO3: 0
PO4: .08
Ca: 395 (I've been slowly bumping this back up)
Mg: 1460
Salinity: 1.026
pH: 7.79 - 7.96

I ended up yanking my Red Ogo out of the sump since it was pretty much a bubble algae farm. I've also added additional CUC to combat the growing GHA problem. One thing that's concerning is that I'm seeing some pretty good bleaching of my coraline, which in my head seems like a Nitrate problem.

I've kept the fish feeding to twice a day, but it feels like the more nitrates the add, the more GHA I get. How do I get my coraline the NO3 it needs if GHA is so much better at uptaking it?

 

[Darren in Tacoma]

Manual removal and clean up crew. Just my experience, but I have never had a tank without some algae growing somewhere and small crabs and snails can do a lot of damage to it.

 

[Nemguy123]

So I've been reading these forums for a while now, and posting shortly after I started and I see a lot of the common "I have Dinos!" and "I have GHA!" threads. In my head the culprit is usually boiled down to Nitrate balance. If you suck out too many Nitrates, you're going to risk Dinos. If you have an excess, you get a GHA/Cyano bloom.

This takes me to my current problem: I think I have both? In one corner, I've got some nasty Cyano blooming on the sand bed. In other places, I see Dinos (they are on the sand, go away at night and come back by the end of the day). How do you get into that predicament?

Here's my levels as of this morning:

Salinity: 1.026
NO3: 0ppm (ugh!)
PO4: .04
Ca: 410
Mg: 1340

Now, I did have a pretty icky GHA problem that popped up. I finally got some Red Ogo into my sump, and it ended up bottoming out my NO3. I slightly reduced the photo period in the sump and added a few snails to it (to clean that up). I also started dosing some small measure of NeoNitro to keep NO3 from zero as I was starting to see bleaching of my coraline (Ca/Mg were fine all this time). This NeoNitro looks to have been a tad too much and I've got an ugly Cyano patch forming and my Coraline is kinda covered in brown stuff.

I know my tank isn't "newbie" stage at this point (up and running for 6 months) and I know it's not at the "established" stage either. Is this typical to see this epic battle of bad things all in hopes of the good things somehow coming in at the last minute to save the day?

Here's the Cyano:


Here's some Dinos:


Here they are together!

If you have a balance of of fish with the corals the system will level out if you need higher nitrates and want to avoid hair algae Add a small Zebramosa tang so many different types they will all do the same thing they are great at pretty much cleaning everything off your rocks. I’ve never had an algae problem in a tank with a few tangs. As for the sand bed sifting sea stars and more snails should keep that clean with increased flow

 

[Siberwulf]

If you have a balance of of fish with the corals the system will level out if you need higher nitrates and want to avoid hair algae Add a small Zebramosa tang so many different types they will all do the same thing they are great at pretty much cleaning everything off your rocks. I’ve never had an algae problem in a tank with a few tangs. As for the sand bed sifting sea stars and more snails should keep that clean with increased flow

I do love tangs! I'm not a fan of doing QT on my own fish (I like to buy QT'd) because I'm scared I'll kill them. Even TTM scares me.

I'll take a look at what Dr. Reef has!

 

[nereefpat]

For what it's worth, that tank does not look it has an algae problem at all.