Zeros?

[theredcenter]

I checked my water today and had zeros across the board on ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and phosphate. I used salifert test kits and hannah for phosphate. If I looked through the side on nitrate, it showed 5 so I guess you could say .5 Nitrate.

Did a pretty good sized water change yesterday due to another issue, and I have an automatic water change set up for 10% a week.

Question is, would the water change and AWC knock everything down to zero? Going to go back to monitoring it daily for a bit to see if I can spot a trend. Not really sure what info might be needed but hopefully I could get a little guidance on what to dose if I need to. The only thing I dose at this point is All For Reef.

 

[ndrwater]

Zeros for things like ammonia and nitrite is a good thing. Low-er nitrate is also generally more desirable depending on what you are keeping. Same goes with phosphate.
Higher nitrate and phosphate can lead to a plethora of not so good things like algae outbreaks.

 

[Tahoe61]

How old is the system?
What was the nitrate and phosphate number prior to the water change?

 

[MikeReefs]

Put it this way if you do a 20% water change your levels will be cut by 20%. You can certainly bottom out by excessive water changes. Levels at 0 are not good because you starve bacteria and cause a Dino outbreak. You want it a sweet spot of .03-.10 phos and around 5-10 nitrate

 

[CHSUB]

.5 no3 is ideal, my tank shows clear on side view Salifert. Actual level is .1 no3 which is also perfectly acceptable and ideal.

This is what “low” no3 looks like…

 

[theredcenter]

How old is the system?
What was the nitrate and phosphate number prior to the water change?

It is just about 2 months old. Nitrates were at 10 and phosphates at .8 31 gallon tank. I changed about 10 gallons.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Put it this way if you do a 20% water change your levels will be cut by 20%. You can certainly bottom out by excessive water changes. Levels at 0 are not good because you starve bacteria and cause a Dino outbreak. You want it a sweet spot of .03-.10 phos and around 5-10 nitrate

Except phosphate, which will drop down by 20%, but may come back nearly to the same level as phosphate releases from the rock and sand due to the lower temporary value.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

It is just about 2 months old. Nitrates were at 10 and phosphates at .8 31 gallon tank. I changed about 10 gallons.

The water change did not cause that difference. Test error or something else much explain it.

If values are zero, I’d feed more.

 

[theredcenter]

So I have been checking regularly and I dont think it is a test error. There hasn't been much change. I did increase feeding a bit. And can get to .2 or .5 if I look from the side on the salifert test, and that is being generous with the color match. Looking from above it looks clear. I did get some frozen food to try. Threw in the whole cube. The fish just gave up on eating there was so much.

Would stopping my protien skimmer help? I am running a tunze comline 9001 on a 31 gallon tank.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

If nutrients are lower than you want and if feeding more is not a good option for you, then dosing N and P are fine options.

For phosphate, I recommend food grade sodium phosphate.

For N, I recommend foods grades of ammonium bicarbonate, sodium nitrate, or calcium nitrate.