Raising nutrient levels

[nzkiwi80]

So I'm struggling with Coral growth, even things like Green Star Polyp, Zoa etc

I've done an ICP test and some levels are really low, for example

Nitrate: 0.3ppm
Phosphate Po4: 0.008ppm
Phosphorus: 0.003ppm

How can I increase this without just feeding algea growth, I assume that's what's consuming these as it is?

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Do you have algae in the tank? Bad algae problems will skew the test results.

 

[nzkiwi80]

Do you have algae in the tank? Bad algae problems will skew the test results.

I do weekly water changes, by the weekend there's a fine layer over the glass. Rock has small volumes but nothing bad. There's a few spots of bubble algea i'm trying to contain and remove

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Film algae is normal, it will always grow, and its good for the system.

So if the algae is not an issue, I like to look at natural ways to increase nutrients first, such as are you over filtered? Maybe you can reduce some filtration, maybe adding another fish or feeding more often helps, I feed 3 times a day and I find it keep my tank in check. If you do dose, I would suggest to research dosing ammonia. Corals consume ammonia much easier then nitrate. In fact, nitrate is a waste product, and corals have to spend energy to basically reverse engineer the nitrate into more consumable aminos.

There are may ways to go about it so hopefully others will chime in. Good luck

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Feeding more or dosing N and P are both fine plans.

 

[BryanM]

I would look up DIY Nitrate and Phosphate dosing here. They both work well. I've never had good luck feeding more to make any measurable difference.

And it is a bit of a myth that having ultra low N and P will keep algae at bay. Algae is more efficient, and you're likely starving corals with ultra low nutrients. That's my opinion at least.

 

[EnterName]

I'm dosing nutrients daily multiple times with DIY stock solutions. You can find some recipes here:
Ammonia Dosing Recipe
Phosphate Dosing Recipe

If you need help with preparing solutions based on the chemicals available to you, I might be able to help with the chemistry/math.

However, I want to emphasize that even 0.00ppm NO₃ doesn't necessarily means that your tank is actually nitrogen limited. Corals prefer ammonia and can also use urea and amino acids. They can also digest food which provides a good source of nitrogen. Just try dosing a little bit for quite a while and see if algae growth increases. I wouldn't start to chase numbers like 10ppm NO₃ or so. This might be far more than your tank actually needs even though there are plenty of tanks that run without any issues with much higher nutrient levels.