Nitrates for zoas

[wilecyote007]

Hey everyone!
I have a 75 gal little over 3 months with 1 clown, cuc and love rock. I added a couple zoa frags 2 weeks ago. I want them to thrive but i have 0 nitrates in my tank. What can i do to add nitrates, just enough to make for happy frags?
I have not changed water in a couple weeks.
No gfo
No skimmer
Hob biowheel
Thank yall

 

[40B Knasty]

My tank is at 1ppm and I get 5-6 polyps a month on slow growing rasta zoanthid. Just counted my dragons eyes if that is what they are called. Went from 33 to 44 now. Bam bams went from 11 to 14 in 2 weeks.
Half the recommended dose of Reefroids with some tank water. Spray it with your turkey baster in front of a place with flow 2 or 3x a week. That should get you an extra 2-3 polyps a month. The rest is all lighting time and what you have for lights. Let me know what you have.

 

[Valkyrie]

My tank is at 1ppm and I get 5-6 polyps a month on slow growing rasta zoanthid. Just counted my dragons eyes if that is what they are called. Went from 33 to 44 now. Bam bams went from 11 to 14 in 2 weeks.
Half the recommended dose of Reefroids with some tank water. Spray it with your turkey baster in front of a place with flow 2 or 3x a week. That should get you an extra 2-3 polyps a month. The rest is all lighting time and what you have for lights. Let me know what you have.

Seriously? I have Rasta zoas and I am going to start doing this! 2 months and I still have the same 3 polyps, only one has gotten larger. Got a couple other zoas, no idea if they're anything in particular (don't care, either, bought cuz they pretty). 2 or 3 times a week, hmmm, need to write a schedule.

 

[wkscott]

You can also dose with Spectracide Stump Remover. Check out TWillards article.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/potassium-nitrate-spectracide-stump-remover-dosing-steps.215730/

 

[jwshiver]

I use this. I don't trust stump remover. If I had to bet money I would say stump remover is an industrial or agricultural grade nitrate. I don't know if Brightwell uses pharmasudical or food grade, but I would trust this over the other. Just my two cents worth.
http://brightwellaquatics.com/products/neonitro.php

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

There are lots of ways to raise nitrogen, including feeding more, and a variety of hobby and nonhobby products that add nitrate.

This is a fine one:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/222604..._search_query=sodium nitrate&ref=sr_gallery_7

 

[Myka]

Hey everyone!
I have a 75 gal little over 3 months with 1 clown, cuc and love rock. I added a couple zoa frags 2 weeks ago. I want them to thrive but i have 0 nitrates in my tank. What can i do to add nitrates, just enough to make for happy frags?
I have not changed water in a couple weeks.
No gfo
No skimmer
Hob biowheel
Thank yall

Your tank is very young, and has only 1 fish. I would not be adding chemicals to your tank. It sounds like this may be your first reef tank? I'd suggest you keep it simple, and I don't think it's a good idea for others on here to be recommending you add this 'n' that to your tank. Just add fish. Think of your tank as a partially made cookie dough - if you want cookies, you need to finish adding the ingredients to the dough! :D

Also, with that biowheel, you may end up with a HIGH nitrate problem quite quickly, and without much effort. There will probably be a time when you will need to remove that biowheel to keep nitrate LOWER. So, for this reason as well, I would not recommend you directly try to alter nitrate with chemicals.

 

[wilecyote007]

My tank is at 1ppm and I get 5-6 polyps a month on slow growing rasta zoanthid. Just counted my dragons eyes if that is what they are called. Went from 33 to 44 now. Bam bams went from 11 to 14 in 2 weeks.
Half the recommended dose of Reefroids with some tank water. Spray it with your turkey baster in front of a place with flow 2 or 3x a week. That should get you an extra 2-3 polyps a month. The rest is all lighting time and what you have for lights. Let me know what you have.

Good info. At the moment i only have led lights. Nothing special. I have a 4 ft t5 fixture im about to get 2 bulbs for. What do you suggest as far as color and time it stays on?

 

[40B Knasty]

Good info. At the moment i only have led lights. Nothing special. I have a 4 ft t5 fixture im about to get 2 bulbs for. What do you suggest as far as color and time it stays on?

Definitely 1 ATI Blue Plus. Here is the thing.. the best light for feeding is 100% the True Actinic. It does leave a muddy purple line down the middle of your live rock when turned on. It is not aesthetically pleasing for you, but it peaks out at 430nM. Between 400nM-450nM is huge for chlorophyll A&B. The reason for your health and growth of coral. When to feed the zooxanthellae(the brown algae on your coral that uses photosynthesis to feed your coral) is when they want it the most. 10am & 5pm. That is their peak feeding hours. Think of it like this. The coral wakes up for an hour. It feeds and gets its energy from the sun and it process it. Its good to go till it wants to feed again a little bit before bed time. So give a 2hr dose of feeding 9-11am & 4-6pm. Add reefroids during that 5pm peak 2x3 a week.
Watch the ATI T5 combo video on YouTube done by Than from Tidal Gardens. Part 1 is about the lights and what role they play in nM. Part 2 shows combos and kind of plays a game with you. Leaving your choice unbiased. As to which 2 to pick.
1st pic: Blue+ and Coral+ is a great combo for aesthetics. Here is a pic of that in my 20g. 8 rastas, 7 drangons eyes, and white skirt/orange . (Dec. picture before using Reefroids and True Actinic with the light change for peak hours)
2nd 3rd 4th pic: Blue+, Coral+, Blue+, True Actinic 9am-11am & 4pm-6pm and Reefroids after 3 months results. (which is all that was transferred over from the 20g to a 40B. That's why you see 4 lights mentioned.) The grey and hyper pink were the white and orange. The rastas have 6 polyps hiding under the skirt to make a total of 24 soon.

 

[wilecyote007]

That is very informative....i am going to watch that video and make a choice but i think at the moment aesthetics will take a backseat to Performance and growth. Do you feed with a turkey bas or something

 

[wilecyote007]

Sorry got cut off. Have you heard anything on those t5 hybrid led bulbs? E8 or of that nature.

 

[40B Knasty]

Sorry got cut off. Have you heard anything on those t5 hybrid led bulbs? E8 or of that nature.

E8s on paper sounded great. From reviews the fixtures all bombed. To early of a release just to get a bunch tech junkies money. Then they take that money and bank it or put it towards more research and development, but their reputation has been slammed by their own doing. Who knows if they will ever want to try and get a reputation back. I would not buy into until they have put out a 3rd edition. 2nd will most likely bomb as well.

 

[40B Knasty]

That is very informative....i am going to watch that video and make a choice but i think at the moment aesthetics will take a backseat to Performance and growth. Do you feed with a turkey bas or something

I feed my fish with a turkey baster all the time after I have strained the frozen food that is melted through a mysis net. Those cubes of food have a ton of phosphates. I fill a shot glass with less than a 1/4 tsp of Reefroids. Suck in some tank water. Put that in the shot glass. Suck up the reefroids with the tank water and squirt that in front of the return of my FLUVAL C4 HOB filter.

 

[40B Knasty]

My bad.. Read that wrong. I thought you said T8s. The E8s. I have heard are another gimmick thing. It is another one of those "you save money on electricity" ideas. With T5s it will cost you about $70 a year. A little over $5 a month. LEDs will still be about $2.50 a month. We all know we have spent $2.50 a month on way worse for ourselves. So you don't drink a half a beer ordered at dinner. The health and growth of your corals will appreciate it :-)

 

[wilecyote007]

That is awesome specifics 408. All light info is appreciated. I have a t8 fixture but i believe t5 is the way to go. Thank you

 

[wilecyote007]

Your tank is very young, and has only 1 fish. I would not be adding chemicals to your tank. It sounds like this may be your first reef tank? I'd suggest you keep it simple, and I don't think it's a good idea for others on here to be recommending you add this 'n' that to your tank. Just add fish. Think of your tank as a partially made cookie dough - if you want cookies, you need to finish adding the ingredients to the dough! :D

Also, with that biowheel, you may end up with a HIGH nitrate problem quite quickly, and without much effort. There will probably be a time when you will need to remove that biowheel to keep nitrate LOWER. So, for this reason as well, I would not recommend you directly try to alter nitrate with chemicals.

Myka! I remember you told me about that biowheel. I think it happened. I turned it off for about 5 days. And a novice mistake i turned it on without dumping the standing water out. It was priming and as soon as it started flowing i smelled a sulfur egg smell and shut it off immediately. Tested water in biowheel
Wheel .5 ammonia
Tank .25
Although when it hit the tank my kenya tree and zoas perked up and my solo clown left his usual corner to swim around the tank. Should i be worried?
This is the first ammonia after livestock I've seen which im kinda excited to see how fast it converts. Im gonna buy a hob skimmer instead.

 

[40B Knasty]

That is awesome specifics 408. All light info is appreciated. I have a t8 fixture but i believe t5 is the way to go. Thank you

I would like to correct myself about something.
What I thought was said by BRS is it is $70 a year was actually $12.50. He said about $70 in 5 years. So it is even that much more cheaper than I had suggested. The only thing would really be costly is your bulb replacements. Even still. That shouldn't matter.
$20 per bulb x 4 bulbs(4bulb fixture)=$80x5years=$400 in replacements in 5 years!
That is $6.66 a month for great lights you can have on the cheapest of fixtures.
If you get a 2 bulb fixture. $200 for 5 years of bulb replacement. It is $3.33 a month for 5 years. Plus only $35 in electricity in 5 years.
On a side note. My Rastas went from 24 to now 28 since my last post here on March 29th. Just counted an hour ago.

 

[Myka]

Myka! I remember you told me about that biowheel. I think it happened. I turned it off for about 5 days. And a novice mistake i turned it on without dumping the standing water out. It was priming and as soon as it started flowing i smelled a sulfur egg smell and shut it off immediately. Tested water in biowheel
Wheel .5 ammonia
Tank .25
Although when it hit the tank my kenya tree and zoas perked up and my solo clown left his usual corner to swim around the tank. Should i be worried?
This is the first ammonia after livestock I've seen which im kinda excited to see how fast it converts. Im gonna buy a hob skimmer instead.

If it was me I'd add some Prime to the system to detoxify the ammonia.