phosphates raising.

[clowns]

numbers where checked by lfs 2 times

 

[spicymikey]

i feed a eel 3 krill every other day and feed mysis cube half in morning and half at night. in a 65g (4footlong)
can my nitrates really 0 with that

Of course it can. Think of it like calories in calories out. I have a bowl of ice cream every night, can I still lose weight? Yes, just exercise more. By carbon dosing you are adding "food" to the water for heterotrophic bacteria to consume, metabolize, and create more bacteria. You learned that the hard way when you created the bacterial bloom that first time. All this extra bacterial activity is going to consume oxygen, nitates, phosphates, iron, iodine, and a whole slew of other inorganic minerals and vitamins, in attition to the steak (nopox). If we want to do serious and regular carbon dosing then we must measure nitrates phosphates, iron, iodine, at very least, to ensure we don't drive those critical life-sustaining minerals to zero.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with carbon dosing. It gets a bad rap, and can cause serious problems, mostly because people do it without monitoring the uptake of those inorganic minerals in the water. Remember, bacteria are a living animal. They eat organic matter like you and me and they create waste like you and me. The waste is organic acids that drive down the pH and can be harmful to other living organisms. They are also aerobic animals, for the most part, and therefore consume oxygen and respirate CO2. So unless we know exactly what we're doing, and measure the effects of the increased "feeding" of the bacteria, we can create more problems than we solve.

If all this seems a bit overwhelming then the solution is simple, just do more water changes and leave it at that. It solves virtually all of our problems. How much water changes? Monitoring your nitrates and phosphates and keeping them within acceptable ranges is a great way to determine how much water changes you need. Any good salt mix is going to have the right ratio of all the other inorganic minerals to help you keep things balanced without testing anything.

Also the definition of acceptable ranges will vary depending on what you're trying to raise in the tank. If you're trying to keep sensitive corals then you must be more careful and, frankly, having an eel on the tank probably isn't a very compatible environment for both. But if you're more of a fish guy and can get by with some simple softies, then having your nitrates and phosphates through the roof is probably not even much of an issue. Hope that answers more questions for you than creates