Nitrate consumption

[scotty333]

Hey guys

Here’s something I’ve not witnessed before …

Over the year this tank’s been running after a reset I’ve controlled nitrates with vodka to great success
2 weeks ago I was dosing 20ml a day to keep around 10-15 no3
But this last couple of weeks it’s dropping fairly rapidly so I’m lowering vodka every other day
Today I’m on 12ml and at .6ppm which I know is low but my corals seem to like it
Po4 is at .05 so they’re not going to starve

I wonder if I’ll reach a point where I need to dose no3? Of ammmonia if I get to that point

 

[Dan_P]

Hey guys

Here’s something I’ve not witnessed before …

Over the year this tank’s been running after a reset I’ve controlled nitrates with vodka to great success
2 weeks ago I was dosing 20ml a day to keep around 10-15 no3
But this last couple of weeks it’s dropping fairly rapidly so I’m lowering vodka every other day
Today I’m on 12ml and at .6ppm which I know is low but my corals seem to like it
Po4 is at .05 so they’re not going to starve

I wonder if I’ll reach a point where I need to dose no3? Of ammmonia if I get to that point

Interesting observation. Maybe another organism has started to dominate nitrate consumption.

In a brightly lit aquarium, one candidate consumer is micro algae. Or maybe the coral are starting to grow faster. The third possibility is denitrification for some reason has started to become an important nitrate consumer. Hopefully, growing coral is the cause.

 

[scotty333]

Interesting observation. Maybe another organism has started to dominate nitrate consumption.

In a brightly lit aquarium, one candidate consumer is micro algae. Or maybe the coral are starting to grow faster. The third possibility is denitrification for some reason has started to become an important nitrate consumer. Hopefully, growing coral is the cause.

I mean , I’ve got caluerpa and a dsb but it’s not suddenly started growing and in fact it remains quite lifeless
Sand for the dsb , that stopped working years ago
My kh is dropping about .1 a day on average over the last few weeks so your probably right that it’s coral consumption

 

[CHSUB]

What test kit measures no3 that low? If Hanna, I’m assuming, is the test difficult or time consuming and what model. TIA

 

[scotty333]

What test kit measures no3 that low? If Hanna, I’m assuming, is the test difficult or time consuming and what model. TIA

Yeah iits Hanna nitrate high range which I believe has a +/- 2ppm accuracy so it could well be 0 but if it was I’d see dinos and I don’t

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

FWIW, corals may be consuming the bacteria, and as long as you are dosing organics, they may have less need for nitrate.