Reason people Aim for 1-2 Nitrates? A myth?

[Lovefish77]

My biggest problem with trying to keep nitrates and phosphates at extremely low levels is you don't really know what your tank is using. One person might have <= 1 PPM nitrate and <= .003 PPM phosphate with the reason being, there are a lot of nutrients moving through the system (e.g. a lot of nutrients coming in and a lot of nutrients being utilized balancing out at near undetectable levels). However, someone else’s tank with those readings might have corals that are absolutely starving. When you keep your nitrates and phosphates higher, you don't really have to worry about your corals starving. As @Belgian Anthias stated earlier, when we measure nitrate/phosphate, we’re really measuring the residual or in other words, what is left after the organisms utilizing the nutrients have utilized all they can use. All of that said, I'm not advocating extremely high nitrate and phosphate levels, just enough to have some residual and go beyond the margin of error of most test kits. If I were going to test a lot and try to maintain specific levels, I would shoot for 10 PPM nitrate and .1 PPM phosphate. However, I don’t feel like testing nitrate/phosphate all the time, so I’ve started just watching my tank as I explained earlier.

Well said and residual nitrates have to do with how much coral load you have absorbing nutrients. I think comparing N and P across different tanks (where in reality all tanks are drastically different) is really bad practice imho. Not to mention that different people have different coral mix between lps and sps. So comparison doesnt really hold I think

 

[Ozzydeanizzy]

I wish I could get my nitrates down. After a Dino bloom in October, they shot up to 160ppm. Water changes, no3po4x, and finally the addition of a bio pellet reactor has gotten them down to 80ppm. Tank is 180 gallons. I’ve done as much as a 60 gallon change with no fluctuation on nitrates. Any suggestions are welcome!

Make sure your test kit is accurate that’s where I always start now before doing any massive changes

 

[Freenow54]

I really like using Hanna digital checkers , for ph / nitrate I find API is fine

I wanted to use Hanna products. I do like digital meters. I have ben retired for 2 months now, and was in the HVAC business. Found digital much more accurate.
Unfortunately this virus has parts of the industry at a standstill. My store manager told me they are having problems getting the replacement media.
Maybe I will look at amazon. Another member convinced me to get a DI filter. Here a local company wanted around $250 for the filter, and would not sell me the resin. They wanted to do it. On amazon I got the filter and 2 5K bags of resin for about $80 Canadian.

 

[Freenow54]

Another thought. What I did was use the test kit, and checked my known zero TDS water to get a benchmark color for the different readings

 

[Lovefish77]

I wanted to use Hanna products. I do like digital meters. I have ben retired for 2 months now, and was in the HVAC business. Found digital much more accurate.
Unfortunately this virus has parts of the industry at a standstill. My store manager told me they are having problems getting the replacement media.
Maybe I will look at amazon. Another member convinced me to get a DI filter. Here a local company wanted around $250 for the filter, and would not sell me the resin. They wanted to do it. On amazon I got the filter and 2 5K bags of resin for about $80 Canadian.

Brs is my go to place for agentz5

 

[Pinky80]

I don’t mean to challenge anybody's experience here. I've heard positive experiences from ultra-low nutrient tanks, and from messy, almost insulting, septic looking high nutrient tanks. What has worked for me is having a refugium with chaeto/caulerpa, lots of pods and amphipods (and a great onslaught of other critters), with bio loaded rocks and an active light cycle between the display tank and the fuge.

When I did chase numbers, my inverts would crash and the tank would end up being an over glorified FOWLR tank. I would routinely check numbers, or check when I'm seeing something going wrong, and it became an obsession. At one time, my BTA's were in a tank with nitrates at 80 with not a speck of algae anywhere, and they never looked better and I still thought I was doing something wrong. In another tank, nothing was growing or keeping color, and the chaeto completely shriveled to a pile of puke, but my nitrate and phosphate numbers were low like everyone said they should be, all while I'm battling Dinos. So nutrients are a good thing right? It was discouraging and stressful. So I’m disinclined to chasing numbers now.

Perhaps it has to do with what we keep in the display tank. LPS, SPS, nems, and clams may do better in lower nutrient tanks, but do we really know? As they consume the nutrients, and we go to test for numbers and get low numbers, are we led to think low nutrients are the way to success, all the while we're heavily feeding our fishes at the same time? I've seen Carpet Nems in tanks that would scare seasoned tank cleaners from even servicing the tank. And I've seen SPS in bare bottom tanks, emaciated fish, without a trace of algae anywhere, and their colors were on point! So it depends on what we're keeping, how much of them we're keeping, and how much they are consuming. So is there a balance that we are not considering when we're all taught to chase numbers? Remember the Redford Ratio? When I fed my nems or corals, they were getting carbon from their food. Carbon may be supplemented in other sources, but forget that for a moment. Carbon consumed from food, plus Nitrate and Phosphate from the water, plus the correct lighting and a healthy population of Zooxanthallae, and voila, a healthy, colorful, clam, nem or coral. Sounds simple, but really its a lot of variables in a crazy balanced equation. So when we delete sources to make our numbers low, are we doing good or are we starving the equation?

I think checking numbers is a good tool to help diagnose what is going wrong when the inhabitants are looking off point. But if the critters, chaeto, rocks, and the beautiful nems or corals are looking good, maybe check the numbers and make a diary entry and move on. Oh yeah, keeping a logbook/diary is a great tool to track what you have done right or wrong as the tank is cycling. Once it's mature and stable, maybe less monitoring of the numbers and more monitoring of the animals is more pertinent. Numbers can be quite obsessive, but letting the system balance out works great or me.

 

[kcschwabe]

This is like an everlasting question where you will find disagreement between different schools of thought, probably with success throughout the entre range from 1ppm to 20ppm. My nitrates were always zero and I was not happy, they climbed to 2 ppm, and because i feed a lot with many anemones they are now at 10 ppm. But for now I am not having any knee-jerk reactions and just watching things carefully. I already have good nutrient export (skimmer, algae scrubber and about 10-15% water chance monthly. So not doing anything else or scrambling at the moment.

Can I see a pic of your tank

 

[Lovefish77]

Can I see a pic of your tank

Just a pic? you can see a video
Watch "My Reef Tank..November 2020" on YouTube

 

[Aqua Man]

see a video

Wow! That was a really great video. Superb editing and great music!

 

[Lovefish77]

Wow! That was a really great video. Superb editing and great music!

Thwnks for the kind words
Want some black widow nems? They are multiplying like gremlins lol.

 

[Freenow54]

Brs is my go to place for agentz5

Unfortunately BRS ships to here, but it comes courier, and get hit with all sorts of charges. plus waiting all day