We cannot get the nitrates to go low

[reneeL]

We do water changes. We could do them more but the weather is hot so getting the water cool enough after mixing is not easy.
I have a redsea roller, a diy algae scrubber, cheato, protein scrubber. A decent amount of the small rocks that are under the roller. The algae is growing well.
We are having difficulty getting our nitrates down on all 4 tanks.
The 20 gallon tank gets a 10 gallon water change which is half the water. The 180 has had a 40 gallon plus change. The 40 gallon tanks were changed out each 10 /12 gallons. The salinity was checked before adding the water but the tanks are higher in salinity than we like. They seems to always get higher after we put the water in the tank.
I have been feeding only as much as they can eat in a minute. 180 has 21 fish, 2 cubes when I feed. I have stopped feeding the baby brine. Do baby brine cause the nitrate problem? I am not going to feed bb until the nitrates get under control. We also had baby jellyfish hatching in all tanks. The bb is the only thing they were all had in common.
I do not dose anything. The CA is also high. See photo sheet with results. Wet chemistry and Hanna checkers were used to test. The nitrate and CA always are high.
I have a large clean up crew. Algae does not need cleaning off the glass often, no bad algae that I know of in the tank. We do have 3 tangs and lawnmower blenny.
The corals are open. Only the purple plating sponge seems to have slowed down. My maroon gorgonian seems to be opening less. Everything else seems to be doing well.
Can you help me with getting the nitrates lower? Is the high calcium a concern? I do not dose. Salt mix is Reef Crystals.
Tank 4 is the one with macro algae. Last 2 photos show the 20 gallon tank. The other photos are the 180 mixed reef.
High nitrate but no algae on the glass or sandbed.

 

[metro6775]

I had very high nitrate; 75+. I added a refugium of chaeto and nitrate dropped over a few months to zero. Phosphate is also zero. Then dinos bloomed. So I added UV, and now I dose phosphate and nitrate. Sometimes getting rid of something causes something else to occur.

 

[BryanM]

There are plenty of dirty tanks with very high nitrates that are gorgeous.

I would be concerned about your phosphates if they are really 2 and 4... Those are quite high and I'd be looking to actively reduce that. I tried a few ways and finally settled on a GFO reactor which does work. I do also run an algae turf scrubber, but my phos were .9 and blinking, so sky high.

Now that I have it almost where I want it, I'm hoping to turn off the GFO reactor and see how well (or not) the ATS maintains phos.

 

[reneeL]

Like others have stated the actual numbers (while alarming) dont really tell the whole story. How does everything look and grow is the main concern. If it looks good and corals grow well with no algae issues then its probably fine. I know I have read that phosphates bind to coral skeletons during growth possibly making them brittle or cause other growth issues. My previous reef ran well over 1.0 phos for a few years stuff grew fine didnt seem to be anymore brittle than anyother coral I have seen. Is 1.0-2.0 fine but anything in the 2.0-3.0 terrible and cause horrible things to happen? IDK and I dont think anyone can answer that either. If its growing and looks healthy and you dont have a bunch of unwanted algaes its probably fine.

It is strange that the macro in that tank is gone. The high Phosphates in this tank is new. Again, we did do a half of the water change. I looked back on my records as I keep a notebook. The numbers were great in June. We started feeding bb daily. I think that is my problem. Learning how much to feed live bb. I am not going feed bb until the numbers get better. Another water change will be done in the next week.
None of the tanks have bad algae.

 

[reneeL]

My target range for nitrate is 5 to 50 ppm. Some nice tanks have 100 ppm. It does not appear there’s a reason to worry about the nitrate levels in this situation, IMO.

The phosphate is more dangerous? What number is your phosphate? I do not want to dose things. I would rather try to fix the problem.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

The phosphate is more dangerous? What number is your phosphate? I do not want to dose things. I would rather try to fix the problem.

If you are asking what my phosphate target is, then it is about 0.06 up to 0.3 ppm. But some great tanks have 1 ppm.

4 ppm is really pushing the envelope and I have little evidence of what happens there, but I’d certainly work to lower it.

There are many ways to reduce phosphate, but it will take a substantial amount of any method to get it down from 2-4 ppm.

 

[reneeL]

Thanks for the information. I will be changing out the water and moving my tree rock.

 

[BrettMallette]

From my experience above 5ppm phosphate starts to cause issues. Slow growth, STN and hair algae goes on the warpath. Between 2 and 5 things arent super happy but also not stressed out, the algae still grows better than the coral so tends to still takeover. Between .5 and 2 corals seem to try and lay down a footing as well as grow. Below .5 and above .1 things seem to be in their true comfort zone coral grows like crazy and seem to lay down territory where the GHA wont grow anymore. Most of this was gauged by alk and calcium consumption over about 12 months.

My PO4 level at one point was between 9 and 11ppm. Had relatively low Nitrates(10ppm) the whole time as well so not exactly same situationHad to dilute tank water with fresh saltwater to get my Hanna ULR to test it so not 100% accurate.

Saw more angry coral from sudden drops than the actual difference in 10ppm and .5ppm. When full part per million is hard to go for a slow drop when its easy to take it from 10 to 1... alot harder to take from 1 to .1.

 

[reneeL]

From my experience above 5ppm phosphate starts to cause issues. Slow growth, STN and hair algae goes on the warpath. Between 2 and 5 things arent super happy but also not stressed out, the algae still grows better than the coral so tends to still takeover. Between .5 and 2 corals seem to try and lay down a footing as well as grow. Below .5 and above .1 things seem to be in their true comfort zone coral grows like crazy and seem to lay down territory where the GHA wont grow anymore. Most of this was gauged by alk and calcium consumption over about 12 months.

My PO4 level at one point was between 9 and 11ppm. Had relatively low Nitrates(10ppm) the whole time as well so not exactly same situationHad to dilute tank water with fresh saltwater to get my Hanna ULR to test it so not 100% accurate.

Saw more angry coral from sudden drops than the actual difference in 10ppm and .5ppm. When full part per million is hard to go for a slow drop when its easy to take it from 10 to 1... alot harder to take fromime 1 to .1.

I do not even have to clean my glass. Algae is not growing. It is confusing. The tanks are still PO4 are .2 for the 180 and No3 80. I am not feeding them more than what they can eat. I added a algae scrubber DIY. It is growing dark green stuff, it does not look like hair algae. The chaeto is also dark green. I have a Protein scrubber and a roller. I do not dose. We change out 40 gallons at a time. This next time we are going to try 80. We want to bring the phosphates down. I have 20 fish and plenty of CUC. No red or brown algae. Some of the good purple but it is not really growing. This tank setup is 8 months but it is the same rocks from March 2024. A redsea tank seam problem. I started over with a new tank. Everything was kept in tanks until we had the new one set up.

This led to having 3 small tanks. My 20 gallon has a .4 phosphate and 10 nitrate. 3 fish small types. Mostly cloves. They are all open. I do not know where the phosphate is coming from. We did a 50% change. This a simple tank. I do not even feed them but a tiny amount.

I did not have high numbers before June. This is confusing.

Thank you for your information.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I do not even have to clean my glass. Algae is not growing. It is confusing. The tanks are still PO4 are .2 for the 180 and No3 80. I am not feeding them more than what they can eat. I added a algae scrubber DIY. It is growing dark green stuff, it does not look like hair algae. The chaeto is also dark green. I have a Protein scrubber and a roller. I do not dose. We change out 40 gallons at a time. This next time we are going to try 80. We want to bring the phosphates down. I have 20 fish and plenty of CUC. No red or brown algae. Some of the good purple but it is not really growing. This tank setup is 8 months but it is the same rocks from March 2024. A redsea tank seam problem. I started over with a new tank. Everything was kept in tanks until we had the new one set up.

This led to having 3 small tanks. My 20 gallon has a .4 phosphate and 10 nitrate. 3 fish small types. Mostly cloves. They are all open. I do not know where the phosphate is coming from. We did a 50% change. This a simple tank. I do not even feed them but a tiny amount.

I did not have high numbers before June. This is confusing.

Thank you for your information.

Algae can easily be limited by trace elements if you are not adding them in dosing or foods.

 

[BrettMallette]

I do not even have to clean my glass. Algae is not growing. It is confusing. The tanks are still PO4 are .2 for the 180 and No3 80. I am not feeding them more than what they can eat. I added a algae scrubber DIY. It is growing dark green stuff, it does not look like hair algae. The chaeto is also dark green. I have a Protein scrubber and a roller. I do not dose. We change out 40 gallons at a time. This next time we are going to try 80. We want to bring the phosphates down. I have 20 fish and plenty of CUC. No red or brown algae. Some of the good purple but it is not really growing. This tank setup is 8 months but it is the same rocks from March 2024. A redsea tank seam problem. I started over with a new tank. Everything was kept in tanks until we had the new one set up.

This led to having 3 small tanks. My 20 gallon has a .4 phosphate and 10 nitrate. 3 fish small types. Mostly cloves. They are all open. I do not know where the phosphate is coming from. We did a 50% change. This a simple tank. I do not even feed them but a tiny amount.

I did not have high numbers before June. This is confusing.

Thank you for your information.

Randy should be able to help more but i feel the PO4 is coming out of your rock and sandbed but .2 or even .4 really isnt THAT bad and with 80 nitrates your at like 200:1 which may be the cause of the of the weird algae if ya got your nitrates down to 40 or 20 it may clear up due to a rebalancing of nutrients.

 

[reneeL]

Randy should be able to help more but i feel the PO4 is coming out of your rock and sandbed but .2 or even .4 really isnt THAT bad and with 80 nitrates your at like 200:1 which may be the cause of the of the weird algae if ya got your nitrates down to 40 or 20 it may clear up due to a rebalancing of nutrients.

The tank was testing at 20-40 nitrates before May. I did add some new live rock in May. Not much as I spread it out between the 4 tanks. I did get some fresh rubble rock. Thanks for getting me to remember about the new rock.
I never really tested as often as I do now. As long as all the corals opened. The display has had no deaths since Jan. elegance could not hang on and a firefish swam into it and died. Of course an accasionaly snail will get flipped.

I am going to keep working on monitoring the problem. So as long as my fish are good, frogspawn, hammer and soft corals open I will not worry as much.

I have had saltwater starting in 1994 managed to keep until 2017. 2017 it was destroyed by Harvey and officials keeping people from returning.
Experience has taught me well. The chemistry stuff I am still not great at.
You read about the numbers and start trying to get your tank that way. The numbers are a challenge. Last check Ph 7.8. salinity 1.025. No3 80, Po4 .2 Ca 460, Alk 8. I do not overfeed. Before May the PO4 was acceptable. Nitrates 40ish.

 

[twentyleagues]

The tank was testing at 20-40 nitrates before May. I did add some new live rock in May. Not much as I spread it out between the 4 tanks. I did get some fresh rubble rock. Thanks for getting me to remember about the new rock.
I never really tested as often as I do now. As long as all the corals opened. The display has had no deaths since Jan. elegance could not hang on and a firefish swam into it and died. Of course an accasionaly snail will get flipped.

I am going to keep working on monitoring the problem. So as long as my fish are good, frogspawn, hammer and soft corals open I will not worry as much.

I have had saltwater starting in 1994 managed to keep until 2017. 2017 it was destroyed by Harvey and officials keeping people from returning.
Experience has taught me well. The chemistry stuff I am still not great at.
You read about the numbers and start trying to get your tank that way. The numbers are a challenge. Last check Ph 7.8. salinity 1.025. No3 80, Po4 .2 Ca 460, Alk 8. I do not overfeed. Before May the PO4 was acceptable. Nitrates 40ish.

Have you checked your source water? I dont remember if it was discussed before but are you using rodi and if so Does the tds read 0 or near 0?

 

[reneeL]

Have you checked your source water? I dont remember if it was discussed before but are you using rodi and if so Does the tds read 0 or near 0?

Water is filtered and it was also checked. Getting ready to do 80 gallon water change. Just have to work it out so we don't boil the fish. We are in Aransas Pass, Texas. Humid and hot this month. I do not have a chiller anymore. The tank stays 78-80 if the AC is on 77. It is steady. We do not have basements in this part of the country like a lot people with tanks seem to have. We filter using several filters and fill the cans up on our patio. Have good spot for a constant 40 gallons to sit all the time. It takes us approximately 2 hours to do all 4 tanks from set up to finish on a large water change.

 

[backbayreef]

Sorry but this is one confusing thread since I’m OCD and don’t like to jump around all over the map! lol

Those params, assume they are [close to] accurate, I don’t think they’re alarming. How about just focusing on one tank’s nitrate problem? Drive that done and rinse & repeat for the rest? At the high of 62ppm, it’s no big deal right? Just do one 50% WC and NO3 should be down to 30-40’ish. If you want to automate going fwd, look at what others proposed. If you’re dealing with crazy high NO3, you can look into sulfur denitrators — that’s what I did with NO3 at 230ppm+.

Good luck!

 

[twentyleagues]

Water is filtered and it was also checked. Getting ready to do 80 gallon water change. Just have to work it out so we don't boil the fish. We are in Aransas Pass, Texas. Humid and hot this month. I do not have a chiller anymore. The tank stays 78-80 if the AC is on 77. It is steady. We do not have basements in this part of the country like a lot people with tanks seem to have. We filter using several filters and fill the cans up on our patio. Have good spot for a constant 40 gallons to sit all the time. It takes us approximately 2 hours to do all 4 tanks from set up to finish on a large water change.

What does that mean "several filters"? Its either ro/di or its not. If it not ro/di that could be part of the "problem" you can't lower the phosphates if you are adding more in when doing the water change. I am not saying this is the case, but it could be.

But yes as stated before by myself and others these numbers are alarming but if its not algae soup and stuff looks good and is growing its probably not worth freaking out over.

 

[reneeL]

Yes, total ro/di and we tested it. It is not my refill water. As stated many times I do not have unwanted algae. All corals look good. Fish are as busy as ever.
I was just concerned because the numbers are what everyone talks about.

 

[twentyleagues]

Yes, total ro/di and we tested it. It is not my refill water. As stated many times I do not have unwanted algae. All corals look good. Fish are as busy as ever.
I was just concerned because the numbers are what everyone talks about.

Yeah regardless of what everyone says not all reef tanks are the same. I know you said you dont have algae and I was agreeing with you if it looks good and stuff is growing dont worry about hitting some golden set of parameters that people are talking about. Your numbers are "eye opening" at the very least and probably scare some people to death. I was just trying to help trouble shoot as to the why, but its working for you so dont get caught up in the numbers chase. If things change for the worse though it may be beneficial to at least know the why of it.

 

[BryanM]

Yes, total ro/di and we tested it. It is not my refill water. As stated many times I do not have unwanted algae. All corals look good. Fish are as busy as ever.
I was just concerned because the numbers are what everyone talks about.

This is one example tank with sky high phos that is gorgeous... If your tank looks good I wouldn't be all that worried. I'd still take steps to lower phos, but there are some that just say "let the tank tell you if it needs something".

Rich Ross - Home Tank - guess the phosphate

This tank was built before r2r, here is a link to some links about the build. http://packedhead.net/home-reef/ Current test results: 03-17-2017 Ammonia (NH3-4) Good 0 0.000 - 0.050 mg/L 03-17-2017 Nitrite (NO2) Good 0.006 0.000 - 0.100 mg/L 03-17-2017 Phosphate...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[reneeL]

Yeah regardless of what everyone says not all reef tanks are the same. I know you said you dont have algae and I was agreeing with you if it looks good and stuff is growing dont worry about hitting some golden set of parameters that people are talking about. Your numbers are "eye opening" at the very least and probably scare some people to death. I was just trying to help trouble shoot as to the why, but its working for you so dont get caught up in the numbers chase. If things change for the worse though it may be beneficial to at least know the why of it.

We just completed a big water change, so we will see if the numbers change. The algae scrubber is doing well and the holding area under it is full of white looking vine type sponge and some ulva/lettuce macro algae is getting a foothold. I am hoping the lettuce gets going.
I am getting an order of amphipods which will go in the sump. We will check numbers tomorrow and finish the big water change for the other tanks. Only can use water early in the morning or it is to hot.

 

[reneeL]

My on going war with phosphates.
Water changed. Now Phosphates are 2.4 checked many times and Nitrate 45.3. I have been feeding only enough. I am ready to give up on phosphates. My tank is clear the corals are open the fish are active.
Corals do not look like they are unhappy but I do not notice them growing much. Zoe that were added have have more heads. The Green star supposed take over stuff looks good but has not taken over the rock. My pulsing xenia same thing. Tank set up in January but rock has been with us since March 2024. Had a RS seam problem and we bought a new tank. Most fish and rock moved. Sand was cleaned during this change.
I did stop feeding bb live. Trying to see if they brought the phosphate up. I am giving it another week. My red finger gorgonian has not been doing well since stopping the bb.
So I will move it to another tank or feed the bb.

My sump does including RS roller, recent DIY algae scrubber, protein skimmer. I have a small jet in the pump area so the water gets current and air. Tank is a 180.
My cheato is under the DIY algae scrubber (growing well) the container under this is just so the cheato does not go everywhere and it is starting to grow ulva/sea lettuce.
I have a good clean up crew. Conchs, snails of all kinds. 3 jawfish that re arrange sand often.
The candycane coral is starting to expand. I moved them down about 4 inches. My sponge seems tree seems to be doing well. The turkey wing animals are still alive.

Perhaps those that say do not chase the numbers are correct. I am going to see if the phosphate goes up. I have not added anything but a big water change 60 gallons we were trying for 80 but I did not want so much out of water.
When I tried to stir up the tank I did not get hardly any junk. Even very debri from the sand cleaning along the glass.

Still waiting on the amphipods, I ordered a lot. They always helped when I started a tank along with conch snails.
This is more recent this month. The last is from early August before stopping the live bb. The red finger gorgonian has not been happy since. I took section photos because you cannot get a good whole tank photo of a 180. The lights are turned up in order to get a decent photo. As you can see no extra algae.
I would love to see more growth.