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HONEST Nitrates


justinT

Nitrates  

149 members have voted

  1. 1. Really...what are your nitrates? We all KNOW they should be 0...but honestly...Seems like different people have different viewpoints. So in an anonymous poll where no one will get harassed, what are they?

    • 0
      61
    • ~5
      36
    • ~10
      23
    • ~20
      19
    • 20+
      10


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Honestly, mine reads 0 too. But my tank is fairly new and not fully stocked yet. My chaeto grows very slowly, which I also think is a good sign.

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Mine is 0 tested tonight,

 

oh and I have GHA, Bryposis, bubble (green and red) Cyano, and maybe Dinos. I also have some "viney" looking macro that looked cool when it was only on one rock, now is choking everything out...ummm I had Cheato in my fuge that wilted to mush

 

Be careful what you wish for...

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My test kits say zero, but I never believe a reading of zero. Besides, all of my bubble algae and hair algae and some strange scummy stuff on the back wall is doing amazingly well (bubble algae is ugly and a pest, but at the same time it takes undesirable stuff out of the water so I'm leaving it be for now) so I know the nitrates are there. There's too much living in my tank for there not to be nitrates in it, though I'm to blame for that on account of the fact that I over feed my corals and fish.

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spankyleatherlips

I voted for 20 or less (the only person) My tank is doing well and nothing has died thus far.

I have no algae on my LR and my sand bed is clean. I overfeed I guess but do a 20% water change at least bi-weekly. My other tests come out perfect, just those dangburn nitrates.

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Mine is 0 tested tonight,

 

oh and I have GHA, Bryposis, bubble (green and red) Cyano, and maybe Dinos. I also have some "viney" looking macro that looked cool when it was only on one rock, now is choking everything out...ummm I had Cheato in my fuge that wilted to mush

 

Be careful what you wish for...

My emerald crab and CUC decimated my algae.

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FiRsT-aNd-LaSt
I'm sure I have some cuz my chaeto and macros grow fairly well, but they are undetectable when I test.

+1 Test kits show 0, my api test kit is so yellow it almost glow like a highlighter marker, but I do have chaeto growing but not crazy so I know it's close to 0.

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I spent 4 hours this weekend removing my rocks and scrubbing them with a toothbrush and reassembling my tank, I've been adding CUC over the last two weeks. Im upping my water changes from 2 to 3 g weekly.

 

My Emerald crab seems to dislike bubble algae...*sigh

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Mine reads at about 2ppm on a Salifert kit. But then again I've got about 30lb of LR in with a single fish in a 33, so I wouldn't really expect massive numbers.

 

(No skimmer, no sump, no 'fuge - straight up natural biological filtration and water changes whenever I can be bothered).

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  • 2 weeks later...

im at zero for nitrates but my phosphates are high, bought the tank from a previous owner who had a very grody FOWLR tank, and stupidly I used the sand live rock and miracle mudd he had, the nitrates were easy to get down, added mangroves and macro algae to sump, but i recently added chemipure elite and purigen and red slime is slowly disappearing off the back wall, need to retest and see how the levels look now

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0.0 on the Salifert.... until I dose calcium nitrate in the tank, then it's 0.2ppm... until morning, when it's back to 0.0

 

 

I am dosing nitrate on a VERY small scale right now. Trace amounts of nitrate (ie, 0.2-0.5ppm) can actually be beneficial to some coral, and also (my theory is) ramps up cheatomorphic algae/refugium growth to remove even more phosphate.

 

 

Nitrates are not your enemy. For most of us, phosphate is the enemy (esp. if you have SPS corals). Phosphate isn't evil--- it's actually a nutrient in a good way, if in the right amounts, but most of our tanks have WAAAY too much phosphate.

 

I use the Seachem phosphate kit and I get a 0.00 to 0.05 reading generally. I am dosing a lot of glucose and Vitamin C to reduce phosphate also. Seems to work.

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