Problems With Nutrients at 0

[pedro2003]

Hello. I currently have a 28 gallon and having both nitrate and phosphate at 0. Tested more than one time. I'm using a hang on with built in skimmer and running (filter and skimmer) all the time and with purigen inside it. My tank has ~6 to 8 months. Should i just feed more? Is purigen removing nutrients from the water?


28 gallon
Salinity 1.025
Alk 8
Nitrate 0
Phosphate 0
Ph

 

[VintageReefer]

If you don’t have much coral I don’t see an issue with low nitrate or phosphate

 

[pedro2003]

If you don’t have much coral I don’t see an issue with low nitrate or phosphate

I forgot to mention that i have some corals. GSP, Kenya Tree, Zoas...

 

[Ironic_Water]

I just went through a 0 nutrient event (no detectable nitrate and phosphate) and have a big ugly dino bloom. I also carbon dosed, which no doubt caused the lack of nutrients and fed the dinos with carbon.

So, you may be safe from dinos, but who knows.

What I did was took my filter offline (kept the skimmer going to oxygenate the water and help my pH) to start getting some detectable nutrients - which helped my phosphate become detectable, but not nitrate. I've been dosing Nyos Nitrate+ as of today.

You may be starving your tank. I'd remove your purigen as well.

 

[VintageReefer]

Great point above and I have used this with success. You can get neonitrate and neophos and follow the instructions on the bottle to bump those numbers up as needed. The products are easy to use and has no side effects

 

[Red_Beard]

Been there brother. Nice tank!
As mentioned above, you can dose up your phosphate and nitrate levels. ammonia dosing is what i would recommend for nitrate should you go that route. Randy has an awesome how to here. And neophos for phosphate.
When mine hit about 5 months it bottomed out, got dinos and was sad. It took me a full bottle and a half to have detectable phos levels over about 2 months. But, then the dinos went away. I would also recommend removing the purigen. It is pulling organics. You may want to start using it after a few months when you get back in the grove, but right now it is not helping. The other recommendation is feed more and filter less. Get your fish good n chunky.

 

[Razorbacks]

My tank is very similar to yours. It's a 20 long and my nutrients are always low and I get dinos every time I accidentally let them bottom out for too long. Luckily I have the kind that break up at night so UV has successfully eliminated them each time.

I used to aim for phosphate that just barely registered but realized that I get better results and faster growing corals if I aim for .05 phosphate or above. I think .02 or below is just too close to the error rate of the Hannah checker and depending on how often you test even a true reading of .02 could still be bottoming out between tests.

Personally I broadcast feed coral food to keep my nutrients up. I found dosing nitrate and phosphate directly works but is more of a hassle and I'd get cyano if I accidentally did too much as once. Feeding fish more and more just created health issues in my fish and still didn't get me where I needed to be.

Good luck!

 

[pedro2003]

Thanks for all suggestions! I'm removing the purigen and start to feed more frequently (with caution). I will try to find products for nit and phos dosing here. Should i also reduce skimming time?

 

[Red_Beard]

Thanks for all suggestions! I'm removing the purigen and start to feed more frequently (with caution). I will try to find products for nit and phos dosing here. Should i also reduce skimming time?

You can, or if you like the oxygenation you can adjust it down. Kinda sucks, as it gets a sludge build up, but you get to keep it online and drastically reduce what it pulls out. That is what i did anyways. Or other people would recommend just pulling off the collection cup and letting it overflow, but that makes too big a mess with salt creep for my taste.

 

[Razorbacks]

I just let me skimmer freeflow back into the tank. That way I get the oxygenation support without the nutrient removal.