Ideal nitrate additives?

[santeeeyyy]

So originally I had a 40 gallon. Kept a constant schedule. I dosed AFR every day, 12 mL. Also did water changes once every two weeks. Doses strontoimum and iodide and the third element from sea chem. I ran out of those three. I would dose coral inertia super food 5ml every day and once a week I would heavily feed my tank and mainly just do a mix of reef roids to target feed my coral and it all went swimmingly the entire time UNTIL I ran out of my sea chem stuff. Then it went downhill. Currently i have high calcium and low magnesium. Which is getting sorted. And it seems like I may have high phosphate and low nitrate. I stopped dosing so much food in the tank to hopefully fix the high phosphate issue and I thought my lights stopped working since zoas looked like they were reaching for light. Hopefully it’s just a nitrate issue but currently I can’t get Hanna tester reagents because they’re unavailable at all my local fish stores for nitrates. I’m normally never a numbers chaser but my tank is primarily softies but I was given a colony of hammers and torches and some gonis which I assumed tossed my calcium and mg out. So now I need to deal with my nitrate and phosphate issues

 

[santeeeyyy]

Currently I have a co2 scrubber on my skimmer. (Skimmer cup barely exports any waste) and a carbon reactor with a refugium light in my sump, no cheato but it just has nuisance algae that I take out time to time and have some snails down there to help produce waste. Only thing that changed was I ran out of my three chemicals and I got two gonis dumped on me and I fed 5mL of the super food for my softies each day.

 

[fryman]

Sounds like you don't know your nitrate level but are thinking about dosing it?

My advice is don't do that.

Also, why do you think uou have high Ca & low Mg? My guess is test error. I don't bother testing Mg, hobby test kits are no good. If you really need to know Mg, then use ICP. I recommend Oceamo, but also have used ATI. But for a newish tank with limited corals, I am doubtful you really have low Mg. What salt do you use? That probably determines your Mg level more than anything, and most salt mixes run a little high.

Zoas stretching out is an indication of a high-light loving variety that's not getting enough, simple as that.

 

[santeeeyyy]

Sounds like you don't know your nitrate level but are thinking about dosing it?

My advice is don't do that.

Also, why do you think uou have high Ca & low Mg? My guess is test error. I don't bother testing Mg, hobby test kits are no good. If you really need to know Mg, then use ICP. I recommend Oceamo, but also have used ATI. But for a newish tank with limited corals, I am doubtful you really have low Mg. What salt do you use? That probably determines your Mg level more than anything, and most salt mixes run a little high.

Zoas stretching out is an indication of a high-light loving variety that's not getting enough, simple as that.

I’m just seeing signs of low nitrates. I’ve had a bunch of issues on past tanks before but this is new and I’ve never had a low nitrate issue in the past. I’ve tested both using Hanna and salifert and the calcium is relatively within the same parameters. Magnesium I kinda just do a bunch of average it out. I want to get an ICP test done but my gonis started looking better since I dosed mag. I plan on doing an ICP test done after I test for nitrates to see what really is wrong. Yea that’s why I mentioned why u thought a light went out due to the zoas reaching. I tested my par and everything was the same par as it was for the past year.

 

[get-salty]

Dont dose anything that you cannot test.

 

[fryman]

I agree w/ this:

Dont dose anything that you cannot test.

I'm not sure what signs of low nitrates looks like, exactly?

My nitrates are low atm (0.5ppm) and my coral doesn't seem to care at all. I think so long as there's particulate food in the water they are fine. I have definately seen corals freak out when I stripped phosphate out of the water (GFO), but nitrate doesn't seem as critical. I make sure I can get a reading, and don't worry too much beyond that. There's always a reading because I feed alot.

Corals perking up may have nothing to do with your Mg dosing. I've had gonies bleach out suddenly, then recover just as quickly, for no apparent reason. I think goniopora needs consistent lighting, flow, water parameters, and regular feeding to do well.

I'm really hesitant to start dosing things reactively, personally.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Actual numbers will help more than 'high' or 'low', there are no numbers in your post to work off of. What is the alk level? Pictures will also really help.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

AFR is dosed based on the alk level, so if you are not testing alk, then it means you are guessing at the dosage. Soft corals don't consume elements like stoney corals do, so AFR is not really needed for a softie tank. It would explain why the calcium is high though, you are dosing it daily (calcium is part of AFR) but they don't build skeletons so they don't consume calcium.

Personally I would suggest to stop dosing everything, let the tank come back down to base levels on everything. Then test with a good quality tester and get your base line and then you can decide what needs to be dosed, based on actual test results. Just my 2 cents good luck