NEED TO ADD - YES ADD- PHOPHATE TO FISH ONLY SW TANK

[EASTERN INDIGO]

I started a 125 gallon quarantine tank from scratch because I bought a school of 6 Yellow Fox Faces to eventually go into my 500 gal display. I used seawater. Then I added about a 3x dose of Turbo 900. Then every day I added another 1-2x dose. This has been going on for over two weeks and NITRITES are still through the roof. So I finally called Fritz and got their tech person. She told me that Ammonia is converted easily to Nitrite, but in order for the Nitrite to be converted to Nitrate the presence of PHOSHPATE in the water was essential, because the bacteria that does the ..trite to..TRATE conversion needs to be activated. I have added a HALF GALLON of Turbo, HALF GALLON. Zero ammonia, very little ..TRATE, but beyond measurable quantity of ..trite. I have been doing 50 to 80 gallon water changes every other day, and doing 5x doses of prime, so all the fish are eating and doing well. But this is INSANITY. So, assuming the tech at Fritz is correct, how do I get a large amount of phosphate in the tank quickly? Thank you all in advance. At this rate I'm either going to have dead fish or a second mortgage on my house.

 

[Azedenkae]

I started a 125 gallon quarantine tank from scratch because I bought a school of 6 Yellow Fox Faces to eventually go into my 500 gal display. I used seawater. Then I added about a 3x dose of Turbo 900. Then every day I added another 1-2x dose. This has been going on for over two weeks and NITRITES are still through the roof. So I finally called Fritz and got their tech person. She told me that Ammonia is converted easily to Nitrite, but in order for the Nitrite to be converted to Nitrate the presence of PHOSHPATE in the water was essential, because the bacteria that does the ..trite to..TRATE conversion needs to be activated. I have added a HALF GALLON of Turbo, HALF GALLON. Zero ammonia, very little ..TRATE, but beyond measurable quantity of ..trite. I have been doing 50 to 80 gallon water changes every other day, and doing 5x doses of prime, so all the fish are eating and doing well. But this is INSANITY. So, assuming the tech at Fritz is correct, how do I get a large amount of phosphate in the tank quickly? Thank you all in advance. At this rate I'm either going to have dead fish or a second mortgage on my house.

Don't worry too much about nitrites. You need a very high level of nitrite for there to be short-term toxic effects on marine fish: http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-06/rhf/index.php

I mean, I am not sure how much Prime is needed to detoxify nitrite, but the dosage instructions for Prime says the max dosage (5x) is for 5 ppm ammonia, and presuming a similar amount for nitrite, even with dosing Prime I'd presume if nitrite has an effect on your fish it would already. XD

Info: Seachem Prime® dosing instructions

Use 1 capful (5 mL) for each 200 L (50 US gallons) of new water. For smaller volumes, please note each cap thread is approximately 1 mL. May be added to aquarium directly, but better if added to ne...

seachem.zendesk.com

P.S. You can do a serial dilution to figure out your true nitrite levels, if you are ever curious to see what it is and/or how it is changing.

 

[EASTERN INDIGO]

Thank you for your response, but I am confused. How do you arrive at the conclusion that nitrite is not dangerous short term? Literally everything I have read anywhere claims that nitrite is the deadliest of the 3 A N N. And what is the definition of long term with over 5 ppm? Is it 3 days, 3 weeks? I am not saying you are wrong. Every doctor in the world, as recently as the 1970s, thought ulcers were from stress, until ONE doctor in Australia proved them all wrong. Can you please explain how you come to your conclusion?
Thank you..

 

[Azedenkae]

Thank you for your response, but I am confused. How do you arrive at the conclusion that nitrite is not dangerous short term? Literally everything I have read anywhere claims that nitrite is the deadliest of the 3 A N N. And what is the definition of long term with over 5 ppm? Is it 3 days, 3 weeks? I am not saying you are wrong. Every doctor in the world, as recently as the 1970s, thought ulcers were from stress, until ONE doctor in Australia proved them all wrong. Can you please explain how you come to your conclusion?
Thank you..

Sure, please see the article I linked.

 

[Chriskkusa]

I don't know the why, but I do know that Nitrite in freshwater is the big bad ugly, but for some reason in saltwater it isn't the case at all.

The beneficial bacteria needs the trifecta (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate) to work together, but wait, there's more. The fourth player can be carbon. A carbon limited system will not respond to all the right ingredients either. Gotta love water testing.

 

[tehmadreefer]

Nitrites lethal in saltwater has been debunked for over a decade now. No, you do t need to add po4... since you have fish only, just keep salinity and temp stable and do water changes every so often. Easy peasy

 

[EASTERN INDIGO]

I don't know the why, but I do know that Nitrite in freshwater is the big bad ugly, but for some reason in saltwater it isn't the case at all.

The beneficial bacteria needs the trifecta (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate) to work together, but wait, there's more. The fourth player can be carbon. A carbon limited system will not respond to all the right ingredients either. Gotta love water testing.

How do I test for carbon?

 

[EASTERN INDIGO]

How do I test for carbon?

How do I test for carbon?

 

[blasterman]

Nitrite to nitrate doesn't require phosphate as far as I know.

 

[Azedenkae]

Nitrite to nitrate doesn't require phosphate as far as I know.

That is correct, neither does ammonia to nitrite. Or nitrate reduction for that matter, provided these are all the ones that are part of the electron transport chain.

Though that's just the respiration side of things. Microorganisms still need phosphate for growth/reproduction, and that is the reason why I didn't necessarily want to say the tech at Fritz is wrong per se. I am not sure what Fritz tech mean though by phosphate activating the nitrite oxidizers. That is confusing to me.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Thank you for your response, but I am confused. How do you arrive at the conclusion that nitrite is not dangerous short term? Literally everything I have read anywhere claims that nitrite is the deadliest of the 3 A N N. And what is the definition of long term with over 5 ppm? Is it 3 days, 3 weeks? I am not saying you are wrong. Every doctor in the world, as recently as the 1970s, thought ulcers were from stress, until ONE doctor in Australia proved them all wrong. Can you please explain how you come to your conclusion?
Thank you..

Stop worrying about nitrite. It is not dangerous at all unless you have very high levels (like 50+ ppm).

The concern for nitrite is a false carryover from freshwater aquaria where it is a concern:

Nitrite and the Reef Aquarium by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com

How Toxic is Nitrite to Fish?

For the reason described above, nitrite is considerably more toxic to many freshwater fish (Table 1) than it is to most marine species (Table 2). The data in these tables are primarily the LC50, which is the concentration at which 50% of the test organisms die (24-h LC50 is the concentration that kills half of the tested organisms within 24 hours). As Table 1 shows, some freshwater fish can die at nitrite levels below 1 ppm. This toxicity is the reason many aquarists worry about nitrite in aquaria. It can be a significant problem in freshwater aquaria. Tests in marine species, however, showed the toxicity to be much lower. None of the thirteen marine fish species for which I could find nitrite toxicity data had LC50 values below 100 ppm, and half had LC50 values of 1,000 - 3,000 ppm or more.

Death is, of course, a very crude indicator of toxicity. An aquarium's nitrite level should not come anywhere close to the LC50 value, because less severe toxicity can occur even at levels below that. In the previous section, I showed data on one marine species in which biochemical effects could be detected at levels well below concentrations that caused death. We saw, for example, a rise in methemoglobin at values as low as 46 ppm nitrite. However, the point remains valid that marine species are orders of magnitude less susceptible to the effects of nitrite than are many freshwater species. The marine aquaculture industry often uses a rough guideline that the safe rearing level of many compounds is a factor of 10 or less than their LC50.30

In examining ammonia, nitrite and nitrate toxicity in marine species, one might think to look at the effects on larval fish to see if they are more sensitive. In examining the incidence of the larvae's first feeding after hatching, and the 24-h LC50, it was found that for seven different marine species, only ammonia was found to be toxic at concentrations that might possibly be encountered in aquaculture facilities.25

Table 3 brings out the distinction between freshwater and seawater organisms most clearly. In these tests, two fish and one shrimp species that are able to live in both freshwater (or brackish water) and seawater were tested for toxicity at different salinities. At least for these three species, it is clearly shown that nitrite is much more toxic in freshwater (or at lower salinity) than in seawater, even to the same species.

In the only published article26 that I could find showing toxicity tests to typical reef aquarium fish, Tom Frakes and Bob Studt exposed tank-raised clownfish (Amphiprion ocellaris; Figure 2) to nitrite concentrations ranging from 0 to 330 ppm in artificial seawater. Two of five fish died after a few days at 330 ppm, giving an LC50 not appreciably different from the other species listed in Table 1. At 33 ppm (the next dose down from 330 ppm), the fish were lethargic and breathing with difficulty, but otherwise experienced no lasting problems. At 3.3 ppm nitrite no effects were observed.

One of the difficulties with interpreting toxicity issues, as related by hobbyists who claim to have seen nitrite toxicity in marine fish, is the possible presence of ammonia. In any aquarium with elevated nitrite, the ammonia level also may be elevated. Since ammonia is known to be very toxic to marine fish (LC50 value below 1 ppm), on the aquarist must ensure that the observations are not flawed by such contaminants. In all of the toxicity tests described above, nitrite is added directly to the seawater, and ammonia would not be expected to be present at significant concentrations, whereas in aquariums the levels of the two materials are not independent of one another.

 

[NeonRabbit221B]

You have a "stall" in your cycle but it doesn't make a ton of difference as your tank can process ammonia like a champ. You can see an ongoing thread here below.

How to unstick any seemingly stuck cycle

Hi @Brandon, I have currently set up my new tank at the 3rd week of fishless cycle, I use Dr Tim bac, Carib live sand and rocks. I did the API test as attachment below. Nh3 0 Both NO2 and NO3 r quite height. I have read at ur post NO2 doesn’t matter at all. Would you mind giving me some advices...

www.reef2reef.com

Put down the test kits imo and do a large water change if you are worried you will have heavy nitrates at the end.