Nitrae/Phosphate Ratio - Super high Phosphate, and bottoming out Nitrate.

[SauceyReef]

Recently my Nitrates have been going lower and lower, while my Phosphates just increase. I am not really sure what would be causing this. I would love to learn more about how Phosphates and Nitrates are inversely related.

Ive been feeding Rods Food + Mysis daily. I made a few other posts about this, and was recommended it could be the rods food, so now I am just switching mysis. Ive been testing every few days and here's been my results:

1.5 weeks ago - Nitrate .5ppm / Phosphate 1.2ppm

1 week ago - Nitrate . 3ppm / Phosphate 1.3ppm

Yesterday - Nitrate .0ppm / Phosphate 1.35ppm



I do a 50% water change every other week. I run no filtration except a bunch of chaeto in the back running for like 10 hours. I am scared to change the macro setting because if I lower lights, the Nitrate will just go down even more. I currently bought some PHOSGUARD in hopes to slowly lower Phosphates, and stabilizing nitrates.

 

[DanyL]

In general, the consumption of either phosphates or nitrates can be limited by the lack of each other.
This is the reason why many reefers, me included dose nitrates to decrease phosphate levels, and keep it in check.
Note that this can be very effective and it is possible to bottom out PO4 if you're not carful enough, so make sure to test both nutrients when doing so.

As for a nitrate source - you can use either Sodium Nitrate or Potassium Nitrate, with the benefit of the first option as being more neutral to the chemistry of the water (does not impact Potassium levels).
There are also quite a few commercial reef oriented supplements of nitrate as well if you don't feel comfortable mixing your own.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Recently my Nitrates have been going lower and lower, while my Phosphates just increase. I am not really sure what would be causing this. I would love to learn more about how Phosphates and Nitrates are inversely related.

Ive been feeding Rods Food + Mysis daily. I made a few other posts about this, and was recommended it could be the rods food, so now I am just switching mysis. Ive been testing every few days and here's been my results:

1.5 weeks ago - Nitrate .5ppm / Phosphate 1.2ppm

1 week ago - Nitrate . 3ppm / Phosphate 1.3ppm

Yesterday - Nitrate .0ppm / Phosphate 1.35ppm



I do a 50% water change every other week. I run no filtration except a bunch of chaeto in the back running for like 10 hours. I am scared to change the macro setting because if I lower lights, the Nitrate will just go down even more. I currently bought some PHOSGUARD in hopes to slowly lower Phosphates, and stabilizing nitrates.

Water changes are good at removing nitrate and less effective at phosphate to to bind to rock and sand.

A binder is a reasonable choice, although phosguard carries some aluminum risk. Rinse it very well and watch to be sure corals do not close up.

 

[SauceyReef]

In general, the consumption of either phosphates or nitrates can be limited by the lack of each other.
This is the reason why many reefers, me included dose nitrates to decrease phosphate levels, and keep it in check.
Note that this can be very effective and it is possible to bottom out PO4 if you're not carful enough, so make sure to test both nutrients when doing so.

As for a nitrate source - you can use either Sodium Nitrate or Potassium Nitrate, with the benefit of the first option as being more neutral to the chemistry of the water (does not impact Potassium levels).
There are also quite a few commercial reef oriented supplements of nitrate as well if you don't feel comfortable mixing your own.

So you are basically saying to add nitrates instead of a phosphate remover, which will in turn balance our the phosphates. Think I should just scratch the PHOSGUARD? Any common brands for Sodium Nitrate or Potassium Nitrate you recommend? Something on amazon would be nice because I have prime.

Water changes are good at removing nitrate and less effective at phosphate to to bind to rock and sand.

A binder is a reasonable choice, although phosguard carries some aluminum risk. Rinse it very well and watch to be sure corals do not close up.

Ahh so the water changes have just been kind of setting me back, dang. I was thinking of Phos-E, or Phos RX, but it has lanthanum chloride in it which I wanted to avoid. I was hoping PHOSGUARD didn't have any dangerous chemicals/metals :-/

 

[Kato]

Wouldn't it be better to add more Nitrogen vs Nitrate?...I'm not convinced Corals use Nitrate much if at all.
I would dose something like ATI nutrients N or simply feed more.

You can have 0 Nitrate and plenty of nitrogen for the corals IMHO. PO4 you always need some.

This is a bigger topic and don't want to confuse. Adding Nitrate will help bring PO4 down for sure but believe Nitrogen is more optimal. But detectable Nitrate says nothing about the levels of Nitrogen. It just shows how well you skim/export vs input.

 

[DanyL]

It's perfectly fine to use binders to reduce phosphates, if you want to avoid the aluminum present in phosgurd you may use an Iron based GFO instead, like rowa, powerphos, etc.

The reason why I suggested to dose nitrates however, is because it'll serve both the need to increase it as well as the need to decrease PO4 at the same time, it may not be enough however, this would highly depend on the specifics of your particular system.

I can't recommend any known good brand for chemicals in the US, as I'm living in Israel, but any high purity Sodium Nitrate would work just fine, I personally use 98.7% purity I found at the local chemical supplies store.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Wouldn't it be better to add more Nitrogen vs Nitrate?...I'm not convinced Corals use Nitrate much if at all.
I would dose something like ATI nutrients N or simply feed more.

You can have 0 Nitrate and plenty of nitrogen for the corals IMHO. PO4 you always need some.

This is a bigger topic and don't want to confuse. Adding Nitrate will help bring PO4 down for sure but believe Nitrogen is more optimal. But detectable Nitrate says nothing about the levels of Nitrogen. It just shows how well you skim/export vs input.

There are many ways to add nitrogen, each of which may have pros and cons.

Corals do use nitrate, as well as other Sources.

ATI Nutrient N seems to say it is nitrate. What do you think it is?

Product Name	ATI Nutrition N - 500mL Nitrate Supplement - ATI

 

[Dburr1014]

It's perfectly fine to use binders to reduce phosphates, if you want to avoid the aluminum present in phosgurd you may use an Iron based GFO instead, like rowa, powerphos, etc.

The reason why I suggested to dose nitrates however, is because it'll serve both the need to increase it as well as the need to decrease PO4 at the same time, it may not be enough however, this would highly depend on the specifics of your particular system.

I can't recommend any known good brand for chemicals in the US, as I'm living in Israel, but any high purity Sodium Nitrate would work just fine, I personally use 98.7% purity I found at the local chemical supplies store.

+1
I use calcium nitrate. It boosts calcium very little bit. I am also nitrate limited so I dose 40ml per day. I went from 0.12 down to 0.05.
PO4 at 1.35 or do you mean 0.135?
Once you get a reading on NO3, it should start coming down with the cheato.

 

[Kato]

+1
I use calcium nitrate. It boosts calcium very little bit. I am also nitrate limited so I dose 40ml per day. I went from 0.12 down to 0.05.
PO4 at 1.35 or do you mean 0.135?
Once you get a reading on NO3, it should start coming down with the cheato.

There are many ways to add nitrogen, each of which may have pros and cons.

Corals do use nitrate, as well as other Sources.

ATI Nutrient N seems to say it is nitrate. What do you think it is?

Product Name	ATI Nutrition N - 500mL Nitrate Supplement - ATI

In my experience they don't prefer nitrate at all (can have a lot an still bad colors) and you can run an SPS tank with undetectable nitrate with no problems. Seems ATI came to the same conclusion. Take a look at the ATI video here:



(enable english subtitles...I watched it in German which is not main language).

The SPS tank they run in the background, is done without fish. Only on Nutrient C N P. I've also known of other folks with 5-10 nitrate adding nutrients N and got a lot more color. They likely use various organic compounds, amino's which then eventually become nitrate if not used up first.

The thing with ATI is they have thousands of ICP tests to fall back on.

 

[Kato]

BTW for my tank, I try to aim for very low nitrate as well, using Tropic Marin bacto balance which is also a carbon source, organic compounts and phosphate (much like the ATI C N and P). The end result is Nitrate goes down, po4 normally stable, with plenty of food for the corals.

The way I have begun thinking about this for a while is nitrate is simply the end result of what the corals really want. If you have what they really want, you can drive nitrate very low as they don't rely on it. Not saying it is true (I can't test after all), but was happy to see ATI talking about just that.

Sorry didn't mean to hijack this thread.

 

[Kato]

This is what they say about nutrient N:

..
Stony corals need calcium, carbonate, magnesium, strontium and barium to form the skeleton. Organic compounds and nutrients, consisting of carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P), are required to build biomass.

Nutritions enriches the supply of essentials pro by providing essential organic compounds and nutrients.


He mentions this in the video as well. There's another video on their youtube that talks about it as well. I find them well worth watching and seems to align with my thinking. He even mentions they can't test for Nitrogen. Only for Nitrate and they see it as an indicator of how much nitrogen was available. However adding it directly, makes sure there's always a supply of optimal nutritents (and then just remove the nitrate via skimming/export).

Almost makes me want to do an acro tank without fish to try it out. Ie no fish to add ammonium but do it artificially instead.

So when someone says 'my tank ran great with No3 at 30'. It just means there was plenty of N available at all times (and they didn't export the No3 too well). Thats been my thinking for quite a while anyway.

 

[SauceyReef]

Wouldn't it be better to add more Nitrogen vs Nitrate?...I'm not convinced Corals use Nitrate much if at all.
I would dose something like ATI nutrients N or simply feed more.

You can have 0 Nitrate and plenty of nitrogen for the corals IMHO. PO4 you always need some.

This is a bigger topic and don't want to confuse. Adding Nitrate will help bring PO4 down for sure but believe Nitrogen is more optimal. But detectable Nitrate says nothing about the levels of Nitrogen. It just shows how well you skim/export vs input.

Honestly this is just confusing me more... I test for Nitrates, as do most reefers. I have never heard of anyone testing for "nitrogen" seeing it is a different compound than Nitrate. I am just going to ignore your reply and focus on those just talking about nitrates/phosphates and my actual question.

 

[SauceyReef]

It's perfectly fine to use binders to reduce phosphates, if you want to avoid the aluminum present in phosgurd you may use an Iron based GFO instead, like rowa, powerphos, etc.

The reason why I suggested to dose nitrates however, is because it'll serve both the need to increase it as well as the need to decrease PO4 at the same time, it may not be enough however, this would highly depend on the specifics of your particular system.

I can't recommend any known good brand for chemicals in the US, as I'm living in Israel, but any high purity Sodium Nitrate would work just fine, I personally use 98.7% purity I found at the local chemical supplies store.

Thank you for the help. Somone earlier told me to avoid GFO on my small tank 13.5 evo. Maybe because it will shoot the PO4 down to fast?

+1
I use calcium nitrate. It boosts calcium very little bit. I am also nitrate limited so I dose 40ml per day. I went from 0.12 down to 0.05.
PO4 at 1.35 or do you mean 0.135?
Once you get a reading on NO3, it should start coming down with the cheato.

1.35 ppm lol. Do you mind sharing what product you use specifically? Also what do you mean "coming down with the chaeto"?

In my experience they don't prefer nitrate at all (can have a lot an still bad colors) and you can run an SPS tank with undetectable nitrate with no problems. Seems ATI came to the same conclusion. Take a look at the ATI video here:



(enable english subtitles...I watched it in German which is not main language).

The SPS tank they run in the background, is done without fish. Only on Nutrient C N P. I've also known of other folks with 5-10 nitrate adding nutrients N and got a lot more color. They likely use various organic compounds, amino's which then eventually become nitrate if not used up first.

The thing with ATI is they have thousands of ICP tests to fall back on.

Listen guys, this is not an SPS tank. This is a softy + LPS tank and I need detectable nitrates based off of what EVERY other person has told me plus a ton of articles.

 

[Kato]

Honestly this is just confusing me more... I test for Nitrates, as do most reefers. I have never heard of anyone testing for "nitrogen" seeing it is a different compound than Nitrate. I am just going to ignore your reply and focus on those just talking about nitrates/phosphates and my actual question.

Thats fair. Sorry for hijacking the thread. Not my intention. Should have started a separate. @Randy Holmes-Farley perhaps we can discuss in a separate thread if you watch the video. Would love your input as well.

 

[SauceyReef]

I dont have enough $ to get ICP tests done. I am literally just trying to figure out these two compounds - Nitrates and Phosphates with my Hannas. If you are going to chime in, please consider this fact and that I am new to this in general, and super frustrated right now trying to understand what is going on. Ive had so many people offer different chemicals to add, everyone saying different items, and than telling me the last chemical I decided to get can be harmful or negative for some other reason.

@Kato I dont mean to come off as rude. I am just getting frustrated and pessimistic right now as this is becoming more and more complicated.

 

[Kato]

I dont have enough $ to get ICP tests done. I am literally just trying to figure out these two compounds - Nitrates and Phosphates with my Hannas. If you are going to chime in, please consider this fact and that I am new to this in general, and super frustrated right now trying to understand what is going on. Ive had so many people offer different chemicals to add, everyone saying different items, and than telling me the last chemical I decided to get can be harmful or negative for some other reason.

Adding no3 will bring your Po4 down. In my experience you can add what you aim for (ie what folks have told you, what your belief is). When I started out I had the same 'issue'. I would aim for no3 at 10 and add that in one go (no3 at the time was 1). Then po4 also slowly declined. Various products to add nitrate. Hope this helps.

 

[SauceyReef]

Adding no3 will bring your Po4 down. In my experience you can add what you aim for (ie what folks have told you, what your belief is). When I started out I had the same 'issue'. I would aim for no3 at 10 and add that in one go (no3 at the time was 1). Then po4 also slowly declined. Various products to add nitrate. Hope this helps.

Yes it does - thank you. I feed so much that increasing feeding is definitely not the answer. I think the Rods Food I was using must've been high in PO4. I see no other reason why my PO4 would be so high with regular feeding of frozen food, water changes, and macro algae in the back.

Any suggestions on what to add specifically to increase the nitrate along with my PHOSGUARD to decrease phos? (besides more food)

 

[Kato]

I dont have enough $ to get ICP tests done. I am literally just trying to figure out these two compounds - Nitrates and Phosphates with my Hannas. If you are going to chime in, please consider this fact and that I am new to this in general, and super frustrated right now trying to understand what is going on. Ive had so many people offer different chemicals to add, everyone saying different items, and than telling me the last chemical I decided to get can be harmful or negative for some other reason.

@Kato I dont mean to come off as rude. I am just getting frustrated and pessimistic right now as this is becoming more and more complicated.

You didn't. I just got very excited as I have spent a lot of brain power on these topics in the last 12 months. Should have started a new thread. When you have done this for a while, it's actually whats great about the hobby. A lot of anecdotal information, hard to test for, what others have experienced, etc.

 

[Widdlyscudds]

I dose NeoNitro from brightwell aquatics to increase my nitrates and help balance phosphates. I am very happy with it and it works greats for me. I have consistent problems with nitrates bottoming out and this has been an effective solution to that problem. I don't have super high phosphates so I can't speak too much on how well it can be used to lower phosphate levels but mine have dropped from .05~ to non detectable or barely detectable since I started using it. Kept seeing people say "just feed more just feed more" but imo that just isn't effective for raising nitrates. we dose everything else our corals need, just dose it and be done. and honestly at that point you can feed less to help lower phosphate levels since you wont have to chase the nitrates.

 

[Kato]

Yes it does - thank you. I feed so much that increasing feeding is definitely not the answer. I think the Rods Food I was using must've been high in PO4. I see no other reason why my PO4 would be so high with regular feeding of frozen food, water changes, and macro algae in the back.

Any suggestions on what to add specifically to increase the nitrate along with my PHOSGUARD to decrease phos? (besides more food)

Problem with more food is it adds more po4 as well. If I was in your place, I would buy a no3 adding product (I used a local brand that you likely can't find). There's multiple if you search for it by seachem, brightwell and many others. Will give you ml per 100l per ppm. Add so you have 10, test the next day. Then follow how both no3 and po4 move over time.