Nasrath
Community Member
Hi, please help me with my low nitrate problem. My parameters are:
NO3 0,2 (Salifert)
PO4 0,07 (Hanna)
Alk 9,4
Ca 440
Mg 1410
Tank is 4 months old, started with live rock and live sand, so it was cycled within a week and since then, po4 is stable between 0,03-0,08 and NO3 was stable for month at 5 ppm, than for 2 months around 2,5 ppm and last month it gradually dropped to today’s 0,2 ppm.
I have refugium, there is lot of GHA - approx. 1/5 of available space, rest is caulerpa. I remove GHA often and caulerpa is slowly outcompeting it. I also harvest 1/3 of caulerpa every other week. There is also some cyano in there, but its definitely on decline. Tank is 450l/119gal and refugium approx. 70l/19gal.
My question is, should I dose nitrate? My gut is telling me no, corals I have are looking good and growing. There is little algae in display, but my cuc is on top of it. There are some spots where algae is covered in slime and no one wants to eat it. When I siphon out slime, they seems to be eating that algae. And I probably have light dusting on sand that is brownish/slightly red colour, but my sand sifting goby keeps sand clean, so its hard to tell how it really looks. I’m feeding a lot, feels more like overfeeding to me.
I’m not used to low nutrients situation (and not sure if this is one, algae in fuge is growing super quickly) so all advice is welcomed. Thank You and happy reefing!
NO3 0,2 (Salifert)
PO4 0,07 (Hanna)
Alk 9,4
Ca 440
Mg 1410
Tank is 4 months old, started with live rock and live sand, so it was cycled within a week and since then, po4 is stable between 0,03-0,08 and NO3 was stable for month at 5 ppm, than for 2 months around 2,5 ppm and last month it gradually dropped to today’s 0,2 ppm.
I have refugium, there is lot of GHA - approx. 1/5 of available space, rest is caulerpa. I remove GHA often and caulerpa is slowly outcompeting it. I also harvest 1/3 of caulerpa every other week. There is also some cyano in there, but its definitely on decline. Tank is 450l/119gal and refugium approx. 70l/19gal.
My question is, should I dose nitrate? My gut is telling me no, corals I have are looking good and growing. There is little algae in display, but my cuc is on top of it. There are some spots where algae is covered in slime and no one wants to eat it. When I siphon out slime, they seems to be eating that algae. And I probably have light dusting on sand that is brownish/slightly red colour, but my sand sifting goby keeps sand clean, so its hard to tell how it really looks. I’m feeding a lot, feels more like overfeeding to me.
I’m not used to low nutrients situation (and not sure if this is one, algae in fuge is growing super quickly) so all advice is welcomed. Thank You and happy reefing!
