Nitrates remain undetectable. Help

[absoluteNANOreef]

So I’m trying not to chase numbers but also don’t want to ruin what progress I’ve made. I cannot get my nitrates to a detectable point. I’ve fed more and started dosing neonitro at high rate and nothing will get it passed 0. All corals are happy as of now. Sps polyps and color are good. Zoas are wide open and only ever so slightly lost color but still look great. Hammers are nice and big. Any suggestions? All tests done on Hanna testers

Reefer 170 (43 gallon)
Nitrates 0.0
Phosphates 0.03
Kh 8.7
Calcium 442

Started dosing neonitro 1 time a day. Feeding pe mysis, benepets, reefroids, reef nutrition pac pods, and red sea reef energy.

Also been using tropic Marin np bacto balance for a while now.

 

[jabberwock]

Could be faulty test kit or bad reagent. Buy a cheap API test kit, or have LFS confirm your results.

 

[absoluteNANOreef]

Could be faulty test kit or bad reagent. Buy a cheap API test kit, or have LFS confirm your results.

I will try that, but I should mention that my nitrates did start slowly dropping since Jan 7 when they were at 7.7 it was a steady 1-2 ppm drop over a few weeks using same box of reagents.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I'd feed more or dose N as either ammonia or nitrate.

I recommend diy N dosing solutions. Better purity guarantee and cheaper.

 

[absoluteNANOreef]

I'd feed more or dose N as either ammonia or nitrate.

I recommend diy N dosing solutions. Better purity guarantee and cheaper.

Any specific diy recommendations for N dosing? I only got the neonitro because I wanted something quick but I’d rather do diy so I know exactly what’s going in. Thanks.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Any specific diy recommendations for N dosing? I only got the neonitro because I wanted something quick but I’d rather do diy so I know exactly what’s going in. Thanks.

Lots of them.

Food grade sodium nitrate, calcium nitrate, ammonium chloride and ammonium bicarbonate all work very well.

Here's the ammonium dosing recipe:

DIY Ammonia dosing for low nitrate systems

Some reef aquaria have chronic low nitrogen availability. One indicator is very low nitrate. Nitrate dosing is a fine remedy, but it is possible that ammonia dosing may be more beneficial for some organisms since ammonia can be energetically easier to assimilate than is nitrate. For this...

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