Nitrate dosing. I’m scared. Someone hold my hand please.

[Brett S]

So I‘ve been keeping reef tanks for a while now. Back when I started 15 or 20 years ago deep sand beds were all the rage and nitrates were bad. Sometimes it’s hard to learn new tricks. When I set up my 220G tank about 5 years ago I had to fight hard against my urge to put in a deep sand bed.

The tank has been doing well overall and I keep seeing posts about nitrates and phosphates, but since my tank has been doing well I’ve mostly been ignoring them. Lately though I’ve been dealing with a bit of cyano. It’s not taking over the tank or anything, but there’s enough that it’s kind of a nuisance and I would like to get rid of it. I saw one post that suggested that detectable levels of phosphate with no nitrates can encourage cyano growth and that seems to be the situation I’m in.

My phosphates are at .12ppm, according to my Hanna ULR meter and my nitrates are at 0, according to my salifert test kit.

So I guess my questions are... should I start dosing nitrates? If so, what level should I be aiming for and how quickly should I raise it?

Are my phosphates good where they are?

Is there a good nitrate/phosphate primer that I can read to hopefully start learning some new tricks?

 

[Super Fly]

What are you using for NO3 control?
have you tried increasing NO3 naturally, i.e. shut off/reduce refugium light, remove bioballs etc?

 

[Brett S]

I have a fairly large fuge with chaeto as well as some nuisance algae in my display tank. Does nuisance algae count as NO3 control? I could try cutting back on my fuge lighting, but I’m a little afraid that would let the nuisance algae take over. It seems to be holding it in check right now.

 

[Brett S]

So just to follow up on this, I started dosing nitrates last Friday and so far things have been going well. I’ve been dosing twice a day, morning and evening, and testing in the morning before I dose. I’ve been trying to keep the level at 1ppm for now, figuring that starting slowly is probably best.

It’s only been a few days, but here are my observations so far:

The cyano I was dealing with definitely isn’t gone, but it is improving.

My phosphates started going down, even though I’ve actually been feeding a bit more. They started at .12ppm on Friday and are now down to .07ppm

I haven’t noticed any excessive nuisance algae growth or detrimental effects on my corals

I have one acro that’s always been a rather dull brown color that is now starting to show some bright yellow that I’ve never seen before.

I wound up buying a new DOS for another project, but I only need one pump for that project, so with the other pump I think I’m going to start dosing nitrates. I feel like dosing small quantities throughout the day will be better than the twice a day manual dosing that I’ve been doing.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Dose in small increments and test along the way
Easier to add than remove

 

[Brett S]

Dose in small increments and test along the way
Easier to add than remove

Yeah, I agree. I feel like I’ll aim to keep it at 1ppm for another week or so and see how things go and then maybe try to bump it up to 2ppm and see how that does.

I also want to keep a close eye on my phosphates. I think the .07ppm where they are now is good, but it’s dropped to that from .12ppm in 5 days, so if it continues at that rate they might bottom out and that wouldn’t be good.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Yeah, I agree. I feel like I’ll aim to keep it at 1ppm for another week or so and see how things go and then maybe try to bump it up to 2ppm and see how that does.

I also want to keep a close eye on my phosphates. I think the .07ppm where they are now is good, but it’s dropped to that from .12ppm in 5 days, so if it continues at that rate they might bottom out and that wouldn’t be good.

.07 is good- wouldn’t go much higher as you’ll get hair algae, cyano potential

 

[Brett S]

.07 is good- wouldn’t go much higher as you’ll get hair algae, cyano potential

I agree. I’m happier with .07 than I was with .12, but like I said, it’s been trending down pretty quickly, so I want to make sure it doesn’t go too far down.

 

[Member No 1]

Brett,
Not sure what you are dosing, and it doesn't matter, but I use Brightwell for both nitrate & phosphate.
They have a great write up on how the 2 interact.

Brightwell Aquatics - NeoNitro

Brightwell Aquatics - NeoPhos

www.brightwellaquatics.com

 

[Screwgunner]

Crap i just bought one for phosphate.