Just feed More!

[arcangelreef]

I hear this all the time from so many people in the industry/hobby. If you have low nutrients just feed more!
I have a waterbox 180, so display is 135g. its been up for nearly 2 years. I have struggled with low nutrients the whole life of the tank. I have almost zero algae, i had that battle and in the heat of it was told it was binding all my nutrients. Well that was a lie or oversimplification cause nothing really changed in the nutrients as that battle was won. I didnt change my feeding.

How much is too much food?
I have 10 fish, 5 larger rest smaller fish. i dont have a ton of coral but theres 5-6 euphylia type, montis, 11 different sps varieties still in frag size but doing well, couple mushrooms and 3 varieties of zoas.

I feed my tank 3x a day with a generous amount of pellets on auto feeder and frozen once a day along with aminos at night mixed with oyster feast and odd time ill throw in some reefroids.
on top of all that i add about .03-.05 ppm phosphate every day and i can maintain around 0.07-0.09.
My nitrates will bottom out if i dont supplemnet with dosing nitrate. I dose 3-5ppm nitrate, depending on my test results, every day.
I understand the whole concept of nitrate and phosphate being the "end product" and corals really preferring the precursor versions of p and n. But i mean i cant measure those so i have no idea if there is ever enough and if I have zero DETECTABLE nitrate and phosphate that is kind of telling me that there may very well NOT be enough of the precursors if nothing is coming out the end.

I honestly want to get away from dosing phos and nitrate. I want to just feed the tank.

So how much is too much?
You, feed more guys, if this were your scenario how much more would you add?

 

[The_Paradox]

I hear this all the time from so many people in the industry/hobby. If you have low nutrients just feed more!
I have a waterbox 180, so display is 135g. its been up for nearly 2 years. I have struggled with low nutrients the whole life of the tank. I have almost zero algae, i had that battle and in the heat of it was told it was binding all my nutrients. Well that was a lie or oversimplification cause nothing really changed in the nutrients as that battle was won. I didnt change my feeding.

How much is too much food?
I have 10 fish, 5 larger rest smaller fish. i dont have a ton of coral but theres 5-6 euphylia type, montis, 11 different sps varieties still in frag size but doing well, couple mushrooms and 3 varieties of zoas.

I feed my tank 3x a day with a generous amount of pellets on auto feeder and frozen once a day along with aminos at night mixed with oyster feast and odd time ill throw in some reefroids.
on top of all that i add about .03-.05 ppm phosphate every day and i can maintain around 0.07-0.09.
My nitrates will bottom out if i dont supplemnet with dosing nitrate. I dose 3-5ppm nitrate, depending on my test results, every day.
I understand the whole concept of nitrate and phosphate being the "end product" and corals really preferring the precursor versions of p and n. But i mean i cant measure those so i have no idea if there is ever enough and if I have zero DETECTABLE nitrate and phosphate that is kind of telling me that there may very well NOT be enough of the precursors if nothing is coming out the end.

I honestly want to get away from dosing phos and nitrate. I want to just feed the tank.

So how much is too much?
You, feed more guys, if this were your scenario how much more would you add?

Dosing is better option than feeding for nutrients. If you have a skimmer have you tried just letting it flow over or skimming dry?

 

[arcangelreef]

Dosing is better option than feeding for nutrients. If you have a skimmer have you tried just letting it flow over or skimming dry?

My skimmer has been off for months. And i dont run mechanical filtration unless im cleaning the tank.

Is dosing really a better option? Explain your thought process on that if you would.

I would like to get away from dosing but if its too much then maybe i am doomed to dose forever. dosing is a pain, more pumps more lines more cords more bottles. more points of failure.

 

[Miami Reef]

My tank is the exact opposite. My nutrients are very quick to spike up. In a few days I’ll get a few ppm of NO3 if I stop carbon dosing.

It took 4 days for my PO4 to go from 0.02ppm to 0.14ppm. I just feed a chunk of LRS fish frenzy to my 260 gal tank once a day.

If you want detectable nutrients, dosing is a far better option. Your PO4 is fine where it is now. You can easily dose NO3.

 

[arcangelreef]

My tank is the exact opposite. My nutrients are very quick to spike up. In a few days I’ll get a few ppm of NO3 if I stop carbon dosing.

It took 4 days for my PO4 to go from 0.02ppm to 0.14ppm. I just feed a chunk of LRS fish frenzy to my 260 gal tank once a day.

If you want detectable nutrients, dosing is a far better option. Your PO4 is fine where it is now. You can easily dose NO3.

crazy how different tanks can be..
I know my level of po4 is good.. I dose to maintain it. If I didnt it would bottom out in no time.

I would like to get away from dosing is the thing. Thats why im reaching out to the feed more people. How much do they actually feed?
Are these people in the same boat as guys like you where even just minor amounts of food easily raise their levels?
Is my case just not a candidate for this kind of method?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Are these people in the same boat as guys like you where even just minor amounts of food easily raise their levels?
Is my case just not a candidate for this kind of method?

Aside from what others do, which may not be much of a guide for your tank, what happens if you just feed more?

Ignore the absolute amount, and increase what you are feeding by 50% and see what happens.

 

[arcangelreef]

Aside from what others do, which may not be much of a guide for your tank, what happens if you just feed more?

Ignore the absolute amount, and increase what you are feeding by 50% and see what happens.

Fair enough.. I’ll give it a shot and see what happens.

I’ll report back in a couple weeks.

 

[ronsonb]

How’d this wind up panning out? I’ve started feeding more to increase nutrients this week no change yet though. Don’t want to go too hard to fast.

 

[arcangelreef]

I added an extra pellet feeding per day.. auto feeder now goes 4x a day, and im
Doing 2 cubes of Mysis per day as well, where I was only doing 1 before. Nutrients are staying pretty stable, I’m still dosing the same nitrate and phos as before. My nitrates have slowly been creeping up a few ppm last couple weeks. I was around 7-10 now it’s more like 10-13. So that’s a good sign I can drop back the nitrate dosing a bit. Phosphate has been steady around 0.10. Still dosing the same amount of phosphate.

Thinking about adjusting my auto feeder to drop a slightly larger volume of pellets. See what happens then.

My alkalinity consumption increased slightly I had to increase my volume of kalk to keep up with it. Not a ton but still an increase. Another positive sign.