Why do I have Zero nitates?

[gmavrom]

I have a WB 110 and it has been running since mid Feb. I have about 10 coral frags and 6 fish and a cleanup crew of snails and 2 shrimp. Once it cycled I keept testing and getting zero nitrate and nitrate and zero ammonia and zero Phosphate.I have been over feeding a bit. I just started doing my corals with the red sea coral food. They are mostly lps and soft cora and a couple of SPS. They have not been growing very fast but everybody seems healthy. I went through the ugly stage and have normal algae growth. I am NOT running a skimmer at this point. I do run a uv for 8 to 12 hours. Am I doing anything wrong or is my clean up crew so efficiant and live rock and sand turning any ammonia to nitrogen?

 

[Miami Reef]

Here’s a guide I made to raising nutrients:

https://www.reef2reef.com/ams/the-complete-guide-to-raising-nutrients.1112/


My favorite method is dosing sodium phosphate (for PO4) and Ammonium bicarbonate (as the nitrogen source)


It just means your tank has less import. Feeding more will help, but will take longer.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

If you are confident in your kit, then feeding more or dosing N and P are both good options. The dosing option would also help validate that the kits were working.

As to why, it’s always just a case of more export than import. CUC is not generally a big export. They add N and P back to the water from algae they eat.

 

[KrisReef]

Healthy systems use nutrients, often faster than we can feed once the reef hits its stride. It does seem strange that we may have to dose N & P but when the tank is eating the nutrients we need to keep up with consumption to keep the coral happy

 

[Kmst80]

I have a WB 110 and it has been running since mid Feb. I have about 10 coral frags and 6 fish and a cleanup crew of snails and 2 shrimp. Once it cycled I keept testing and getting zero nitrate and nitrate and zero ammonia and zero Phosphate.I have been over feeding a bit. I just started doing my corals with the red sea coral food. They are mostly lps and soft cora and a couple of SPS. They have not been growing very fast but everybody seems healthy. I went through the ugly stage and have normal algae growth. I am NOT running a skimmer at this point. I do run a uv for 8 to 12 hours. Am I doing anything wrong or is my clean up crew so efficiant and live rock and sand turning any ammonia to nitrogen?

How much is normal algae growth?
Like mentioned before import is less than export of nutrients. Could be your algae is consuming it all. Tank picture might help too.