New tank and low Nitrate

[mjk42]

Hello everyone. I have a tank running now for 2 months and am working to get the chemistry stable for corals. Going through some mild ugly phase with some light green hair algae but have a good clean up crew with crabs and snails and added one spot fox face one week ago. So far I have 4 fish and am slowly adding. ~115 gallon total water system with display and sump.

For the past two weeks now my nitrates have been 0.0 and phos very low or 0.0.

I dosed neo nitrate and neo phos x2 with no change in nitrate 0.0 and minimal bump in phos to 0.04 today. Using Hanna high range nitrate and UL phos checkers.

I have increased feeding with pellets and frozen shrimp daily and skipped a water change this week which I had been doing 10% weekly.

Is this even something I need to worry about at this stage? The neo nitrate bottle says if no response then I could be “carbon deficient” and to start dosing other things. I don’t want to get carried away if this 1- doesn’t matter or 2- just feed and give some time.

Planning to add some more fish soon and some first LPS coral in a few weeks if the nitrates being low won’t be a problem.

Thanks for any advice!

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

hair algae will consume nutrients much faster than corals, so by feeding nitrate and phosphate when you have hair algae you are in fact feeding the algae. Algae consumes the nutrients quickly so its common for test results to show 0-0 when there is an algae problem. As the tank will continue thru the ugly stages for several months, I would suggest to stop dosing nutrients and let the tank mature on its own without trying to control parameters at this early stage.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I personally would keep dosing N and P. Risking dinos is not worth it.

 

[mjk42]

hair algae will consume nutrients much faster than corals, so by feeding nitrate and phosphate when you have hair algae you are in fact feeding the algae. Algae consumes the nutrients quickly so its common for test results to show 0-0 when there is an algae problem. As the tank will continue thru the ugly stages for several months, I would suggest to stop dosing nutrients and let the tank mature on its own without trying to control parameters at this early stage.

This was my thought at first as well that the algae was using up the nutrients. The algae is actually getting better though with very minimal "hair" left and now just the dry Marco rock developing the fine green algae. The fox face, turbo snail and emerald crab have had a significant impact. Hopefully levels start to climb naturally with the increased feeding and water change skip!

 

[mjk42]

I personally would keep dosing N and P. Risking dinos is not worth it.

I got a little lost when they were talking about carbon deficient system and need to start dosing carbon with biofuel? If it remains low again this week with reducing algae I'm certainly concerned about dinos. Just keep dosing neo nitrate and phos? Is there another dosing regimen?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I got a little lost when they were talking about carbon deficient system and need to start dosing carbon with biofuel? If it remains low again this week with reducing algae I'm certainly concerned about dinos. Just keep dosing neo nitrate and phos? Is there another dosing regimen?

Not surprising. Ignore that babble, which makes no sense.

Not a fan of neonitro or neophos, since they are expensive, dilute, and lack any purity guarantee, but they will work.

Food grades of sodium phosphate and ammonium bicarbonate or sodium or calcium nitrate are all good choices for boosting N and P.

 

[mjk42]

I got a little lost when they were talking about carbon deficient system and need to start dosing carbon with biofuel? If it remains low again this week with reducing algae I'm certainly concerned about dinos. Just keep dosing neo nitrate and phos? Is there another dosing regimen?

Not surprising. Ignore that babble, which makes no sense.

Not a fan of neonitro or neophos, since they are expensive, dilute, and lack any purity guarantee, but they will work.

Food grades of sodium phosphate and ammonium bicarbonate or sodium or calcium nitrate are all good choices for boosting N and P.

Sorry for another question but I am going to increase my dosing (still 0.0 this week) and am not sure between calcium nitrate from loudwolf vs ammonium bicarbonate. At this point without corals to use ammonium it seems like the calcium nitrate is the most direct path without relying on metabolism? Eventually could transition over to use the ammonium as I add more fish and corals. Just want to make sure I am thinking about this correctly, my college biochem classes are a distant memory although I definitely enjoy this part of the hobby!

 

[Wu Wei Reefing]

Feed heavy and dose nitrate and phosphate as needed. You didn’t mention type of rock. I’m assuming it was dry rock, which will absorb nutrients heavily for some time. Between dry rock and algae, it can be tough to raise nutrients. You don’t want Dino to take over which do quite well in low nutrient new biomes with low competition. Just know if you have excessive hair algae, it will show 0 because it takes the nutrients before it’s testable. An extra layer to consider. testing at 0 doesn’t always mean 0 nutrients in the system but that’s more so in more established systems that are fine tuned.with heavy in/heavy out.

 

[Wu Wei Reefing]

I got a little lost when they were talking about carbon deficient system and need to start dosing carbon with biofuel? If it remains low again this week with reducing algae I'm certainly concerned about dinos. Just keep dosing neo nitrate and phos? Is there another dosing regimen?

Not surprising. Ignore that babble, which makes no sense.

Not a fan of neonitro or neophos, since they are expensive, dilute, and lack any purity guarantee, but they will work.

Food grades of sodium phosphate and ammonium bicarbonate or sodium or calcium nitrate are all good choices for boosting N and P.

You’ll laugh, but I’ve spoken to multiple people recently who are getting advice to carbon dose brand new tanks, and I mean still cycling new. One guy said a shop told him to NoPox his tank every day in the first month. I don’t know where or who is giving this advice lol.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Sorry for another question but I am going to increase my dosing (still 0.0 this week) and am not sure between calcium nitrate from loudwolf vs ammonium bicarbonate. At this point without corals to use ammonium it seems like the calcium nitrate is the most direct path without relying on metabolism? Eventually could transition over to use the ammonium as I add more fish and corals. Just want to make sure I am thinking about this correctly, my college biochem classes are a distant memory although I definitely enjoy this part of the hobby!

I’d use the calcium nitrate to add 5-10 ppm
Of nitrate is a single dose.

 

[mjk42]

I used Marco dry rock and 20lbs of TBS live sand and 15lbs or TBS live rock for the sump. My ugly stage has honestly been very mild. Some hair algae that has been dealt with by a turbo snail some astrea snails, emerald crab and my foxface. A few spots still but overall looking OK and starting to develop coralline algae which I'm excited about. Definitely more "life" then I anticipated with the live sand/rock and CUC as my calcium has been falling and alkalinity has been hard to keep up and I am already dosing a decent amount prior to adding corals to try to get to alk of 9 and Ca 430. Doing 10% water change weekly on a ~115g system.

Feed heavy and dose nitrate and phosphate as needed. You didn’t mention type of rock. I’m assuming it was dry rock, which will absorb nutrients heavily for some time. Between dry rock and algae, it can be tough to raise nutrients. You don’t want Dino to take over which do quite well in low nutrient new biomes with low competition. Just know if you have excessive hair algae, it will show 0 because it takes the nutrients before it’s testable. An extra layer to consider. testing at 0 doesn’t always mean 0 nutrients in the system but that’s more so in more established systems that are fine tuned.with heavy in/heavy out.

 

[Wu Wei Reefing]

I used Marco dry rock and 20lbs of TBS live sand and 15lbs or TBS live rock for the sump. My ugly stage has honestly been very mild. Some hair algae that has been dealt with by a turbo snail some astrea snails, emerald crab and my foxface. A few spots still but overall looking OK and starting to develop coralline algae which I'm excited about. Definitely more "life" then I anticipated with the live sand/rock and CUC as my calcium has been falling and alkalinity has been hard to keep up and I am already dosing a decent amount prior to adding corals to try to get to alk of 9 and Ca 430. Doing 10% water change weekly on a ~115g system.

Feed heavy and dose nitrate and phosphate as needed. You didn’t mention type of rock. I’m assuming it was dry rock, which will absorb nutrients heavily for some time. Between dry rock and algae, it can be tough to raise nutrients. You don’t want Dino to take over which do quite well in low nutrient new biomes with low competition. Just know if you have excessive hair algae, it will show 0 because it takes the nutrients before it’s testable. An extra layer to consider. testing at 0 doesn’t always mean 0 nutrients in the system but that’s more so in more established systems that are fine tuned.with heavy in/heavy out.

That all makes sense. It will be all over the place for the first 3-4 months. Just make changes slow (even from bad to good) and keep the herbivore pressure high like you’ve started. Regardless of nutrients you can combat all the uglies with manual removal (if it gets big) and herbivores. (Don’t let anyone drive you to going crazy over N and P numbers within reason) Definitely keep some form of nitrate/phosphate on hand. You’ll probably need it off and on at a minimum for a while. Cheap Dino insurance. Like Randy said, brightwell makes products like NeoPhos/Nitro (I’m guilty of using it) but there’s others if you wana be pure as you can.