Nitrates constantly at zero?

coahz

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Hello all!

So I've gone the minimalist route on my 75 gallon setup and only have a few corals (zoas, trachy, scubysteve frammer, and green star polyps) and four fish (purple tang, two clowns, and a hector goby) with about 50 CUC including a sand sifting star. My ammonia is 0, Nitrites, 0, NITRATES 0 and phosphate less than 0.25.... I have about 30 pounds of rock in DT and a bio block in sump.

Im afraid of cyano! So my question is should I add more livestock to get nitrates up? How many if any? Does nitrate? Feed dirtier food? (these four fish eat a lot) All my fish and coral look happy and healthy and id like to keep the minimalist setup but am wondering if that's why nitrates are so low. Cant add more coral without fixing this problem....
 

BostonReefer300

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What are you doing for nutrient export? If you could provide more details about water changes, skimmer, etc. etc. that would help. Also, what test kits are you using for nitrate and phosphate?
 
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coahz

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What are you doing for nutrient export? If you could provide more details about water changes, skimmer, etc. etc. that would help. Also, what test kits are you using for nitrate and phosphate?
Reef Octo 150 Skimmer and a refugium with tumbling chaeto. Ive actually stalled water changes because I wanted to see some nitrates since I afraid of cyano popping up anytime soon

API Reef master
 

PeterC99

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Reef Octo 150 Skimmer and a refugium with tumbling chaeto. Ive actually stalled water changes because I wanted to see some nitrates since I afraid of cyano popping up anytime soon

API Reef master
How old is your aquarium setup?
 

PeterC99

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Ok. Tank is still maturing. Keep practicing good aquarium husbandry and what’s going to happen will happen. I had Cyano 6 months into my new aquarium but taking care of it was pretty simple. Hopefully you won’t need this but if it happens here’s a simple way to get rid of Cyano.

Three things got rid of my cyano naturally and I never cleaned any Cyano out of my tank.

1) Strong UV light
2) Started an Oxydator (look for threads on this site)
3) Phytoplankton every other day

Before and after pics (also have since increased the light point intensity by 15% on my Radions - up to 75%)

PO4 .05, NO3 2
Before 2021 04 28.jpg




After 2021 04 28.jpg
 
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coahz

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Ok. Tank is still maturing. Keep practicing good aquarium husbandry and what’s going to happen will happen. I had Cyano 6 months into my new aquarium but taking care of it was pretty simple. Hopefully you won’t need this but if it happens here’s a simple way to get rid of Cyano.

Three things got rid of my cyano naturally and I never cleaned any Cyano out of my tank.

1) Strong UV light
2) Started an Oxydator (look for threads on this site)
3) Phytoplankton every other day

Before and after pics (also have since increased the light point intensity by 15% on my Radions - up to 75%)

PO4 .05, NO3 2
Before 2021 04 28.jpg




After 2021 04 28.jpg
That is awesome and great advise! Thank you! Your tank looks great!
 

BostonReefer300

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Good advice above about patience with new tanks. I'd suggest you invest in better tests since the API ones are pretty useless. For nitrate, any of the "good" brands like salifert, nyos, etc. work just fine. For phosphate, I'd recommend spending more for the Hanna ULR Phosphorus. You can get the ULR Phosphate instead, but I prefer the Phosphorus one due to slightly better low range performance.
 
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coahz

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Good advice above about patience with new tanks. I'd suggest you invest in better tests since the API ones are pretty useless. For nitrate, any of the "good" brands like salifert, nyos, etc. work just fine. For phosphate, I'd recommend spending more for the Hanna ULR Phosphorus. You can get the ULR Phosphate instead, but I prefer the Phosphorus one due to slightly better low range performance.
I will definitely have to look into these other brands but how useless are we talking here? Because even those tests arent that cheap. Nothing in this hobby real is! lol
 

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
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This kind of thread is chiefly why in new cycling science we do not factor nitrate presence in any cycle. It’s clearly possible to be zero nitrate and still be 100% cycled. (per the kit at hand, we don’t know actual levels)
 
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