I am very hesitant to dose for several reasons.
1. its yet another daily task
2. I am probably going to have to buy more equipment (doser) so its not another task to forget
3. I have dosed nitrate before and browned and killed several acros (to be fair I was using stump remover)
4. I am afraid its going to fuel nuisance algae
So the reef in question is a 10 month old bare bottom SPS dominant 75 gallon. It has lots of rock combined with my 40 gallon sump I estimate water volume to be 65 gallons. I have been seeing a lot lately regarding the use of dry rock and I am starting to agree that dry rock may not be what its cracked up to be, but I did start this one with dry rock that I cooked, cleaned, and cured myself. I took it from my previous 5 year old reef wanting to start over in a new house.
About 3 or 4 months ago I took out my filter sock to get nutrients up which resulted in a a mess of detritus in the sump and I think the cause for a nitrate/phosphate spike. P was at .4 and N was at 30 I was not paying attention and lost a couple corals and several others have just recently recovered. I have a turbo aquatics algae scrubber and was running it to get things stabilized. It did the job lowering nitrates but it did not lower phosphate as efficiently. I was stuck at .15 phosphate and 1 ppm nitrate and every week I was reducing the scrubber time. I added GFO and phosphate is now around .05 but Nitrate is getting back down to black hole status at .5 ppm and falling a little every day. I have reduced the scrubber to not even running anymore lol. I always read to feed and feed some more but I am at the point where if I feed more I am throwing it away. My fish are already fat and lazy at cleaning rock. I feed
1/2 tsp of newlife spectrum pellets daily spread through the day
Daily 1/4 sheet of nori
Benereef 3 times a week
Cube of frozen once a week.
I am getting nervous because I rarely have to clean the glass anymore, Corals I feel like could have better color, I have a clam, and I have fought cyano and dinos before and do not want to go down that road again. So my question is once you start daily dosing nitrate does it eventually stabilize as the tank matures? Like eventually get to the point where its not needed? I have food grade Sodium Nitrate on hand how slow should I go? I was thinking to raise Nitrate 1 ppm a week till I reach around 5 and try and hold it there. How consistent is it once you find the maintenance dose? Does it fluctuate at all?
1. its yet another daily task
2. I am probably going to have to buy more equipment (doser) so its not another task to forget
3. I have dosed nitrate before and browned and killed several acros (to be fair I was using stump remover)
4. I am afraid its going to fuel nuisance algae
So the reef in question is a 10 month old bare bottom SPS dominant 75 gallon. It has lots of rock combined with my 40 gallon sump I estimate water volume to be 65 gallons. I have been seeing a lot lately regarding the use of dry rock and I am starting to agree that dry rock may not be what its cracked up to be, but I did start this one with dry rock that I cooked, cleaned, and cured myself. I took it from my previous 5 year old reef wanting to start over in a new house.
About 3 or 4 months ago I took out my filter sock to get nutrients up which resulted in a a mess of detritus in the sump and I think the cause for a nitrate/phosphate spike. P was at .4 and N was at 30 I was not paying attention and lost a couple corals and several others have just recently recovered. I have a turbo aquatics algae scrubber and was running it to get things stabilized. It did the job lowering nitrates but it did not lower phosphate as efficiently. I was stuck at .15 phosphate and 1 ppm nitrate and every week I was reducing the scrubber time. I added GFO and phosphate is now around .05 but Nitrate is getting back down to black hole status at .5 ppm and falling a little every day. I have reduced the scrubber to not even running anymore lol. I always read to feed and feed some more but I am at the point where if I feed more I am throwing it away. My fish are already fat and lazy at cleaning rock. I feed
1/2 tsp of newlife spectrum pellets daily spread through the day
Daily 1/4 sheet of nori
Benereef 3 times a week
Cube of frozen once a week.
I am getting nervous because I rarely have to clean the glass anymore, Corals I feel like could have better color, I have a clam, and I have fought cyano and dinos before and do not want to go down that road again. So my question is once you start daily dosing nitrate does it eventually stabilize as the tank matures? Like eventually get to the point where its not needed? I have food grade Sodium Nitrate on hand how slow should I go? I was thinking to raise Nitrate 1 ppm a week till I reach around 5 and try and hold it there. How consistent is it once you find the maintenance dose? Does it fluctuate at all?