LOW NITRATES

[Tombones]

0 nitrates, 0 phosphates: What is Tritons view on dosing to raise these amounts.

 

[landlubber]

0 nitrates, 0 phosphates: What is Tritons view on dosing to raise these amounts.

a system with true readings of zero nitrates and zero phosphate is a disaster waiting to happen. you recognize an issue so you can wait a month for your icp results to come back and tell you to raise your no3 and po4 or just feed/dose everything back to proper levels.
I think this is one of those situations where your better judgment and common sense needs to prevail over being spoon-fed by triton.

 

[Joe Batt]

You need both nitrates and phosphates to feed the zooxanthella in the corals. Zero is unlikely to be zero since it is often the accuracy of the testers that comes into play at these low levels. I found that nitrates < 10 worked well for me and po4 < 0.08. Usually, mine were around 5 and 0.07.

I use the Hanna phosphorus ppb ULR tester for Po4 and Res Sea Nitrate/Nitrite tester for Nitrates.

 

[landlubber]

a system with true readings of zero nitrates and zero phosphate is a disaster waiting to happen. you recognize an issue so you can wait a month for your icp results to come back and tell you to raise your no3 and po4 or just feed/dose everything back to proper levels.
I think this is one of those situations where your better judgment and common sense needs to prevail over being spoon-fed by triton.

I must have missed my morning coffee before writing this and I apologize. I stand behind the information but could have spared the shortness.

 

[Tombones]

Landlubber,
Thanks for your reply and apology. My fuge has just recently totally filled with cheato and have read horror stories of it all dying when P and N went to zero. I wanted to hear what Triton might say other than let it die and feed the tank. I do not trust that and I am contemplating dosing P and N to a little higher levels. I have other algae in the fuge besides cheato but not enough to take over the amount of cheato.
Another interesting thing is that my Arcopora corals have darkened as my P and N has gone down this past month.I thought that the corals should have gotten lighter. Could too much iron cause that?
I understand my Hanna testers may be wrong and I have low levels that are just fine and need not dose anything extra.
This is my first post on this site and I was hoping Triton might reply and give more insight on their theory.
PS. Two months ago my Phosphate was .02 ppm with GFO and nitrates 30ppm. Now no GFO is needed and no detectable nitrates using the full Triton method.

 

[Mr.Fishtank]

As long as your corals are still looking healthy I wouldn't do anything. But if your worried then just start feeding the fish more or add some coral food/amino's.

 

[Tombones]

My tank is 3 years old and in the past having high p04 and high n03 until recently, the live rock maybe still be leaching them and with my fuge so full the cheato is slowing its growth due to no light penetration. My thought is the corals and cabbage algae that just started growing is using the leached p04 and n03 from the live rocks, turning the SPS corals darker.
So adding p04 and n03 would not work. I am feeding somewhat heavy so i decided to flip the cheato in the sump bottom side up and then remove some for better light penetration.
Does that make sense.