Phosphate 0 - Nitrate 15

[darksun92]

Hi! I'm experimenting some bleaching and not full opening with my corals, I recently made a post about the full problem here: 

 

I discover that my salinity was on 1.022 so I was compensating my daily top off with salinity and I'm actually on 1.025 but my nutrients are nitrate 15 and phosphate 0 I started to reef roids the sunday and dose Aquaforest Amino Mix and yesterday Energy (I'm starting slowly one supplement every 2 days) but there's no changes in phosphate today test was 0 phosphate again, nitrate something between 15/20, dKh 9, I'm testing with Elos test, there's some green hair algae and my skimmer is making only wet gunk is a Bubble Magus QQ1, what can cause having phosphate on 0? Is that bad?

[Clown79]

Yes phos being 0 is bad. 

 

Corals use it, so does macro algae.

 

It can be caused from over filtration, lack of feedings, imbalances in nutrients, etc etc

 

Feeding frozen, dosing phyto can help, or dosing phosphate are ways to get it up

[darksun92]

15 hours ago, Clown79 said:

Yes phos being 0 is bad. 

 

Corals use it, so does macro algae.

 

It can be caused from over filtration, lack of feedings, imbalances in nutrients, etc etc

 

Feeding frozen, dosing phyto can help, or dosing phosphate are ways to get it up

I have been dosing Aquaforest supplements, reef roids and feeding a lot frozen food but the only I see rising is nitrates but no phosphates and the GHA is starting to grow again. 

[Clown79]

What aquaforest supplements? 

 

I fed reef roids 2 times a day and fed heavily and still no phosphate when I was treating dino's in my tank. I barely could get my nitrates to 2.

 

I couldn't get phos without phyto dosing. I went that route because getting products for dosing phos and nitrates are difficult here, not to mention pods rely on phyto and corals benefit from it too.

 

Having a balance of both nitrates and phos is important.

[Chris882003]

Watching this my nitrates or 25 and phosphate or 0 I feed once a day

[darksun92]

2 hours ago, Clown79 said:

What aquaforest supplements? 

I started on Saturday with Amino Mix and Tuesday with Energy, I’m planning to combine amino mix with vitality on Sunday, and Energy with Build on Tuesday and reef roids on Wednesday. 
 

2 hours ago, Clown79 said:

 

I fed reef roids 2 times a day and fed heavily and still no phosphate when I was treating dino's in my tank. I barely could get my nitrates to 2

So maybe I can I have Dinos? 

 

2 hours ago, Clown79 said:

I couldn't get phos without phyto dosing. I went that route because getting products for dosing phos and nitrates are difficult here, not to mention pods rely on phyto and corals benefit from it too.

I’m going to buy phyto from Aquaforest so. 

[DreC80]

If you have GHA starting to grow than you have phosphates.  They are probably being consumed by the algae so your test is showing zero.  I think you got some pretty solid advice in your original post.  Did the corals look bad with 50 ppm nitrates...or were you adding marine pure, etc to chase numbers?  In a 10 gallon tank you could drop the nitrates by a simple water change.  It sounds like you are doing too many things too fast.  I would reset...quit dosing things, pull the marine pure and just focus on stability through regular water changes.

[Clown79]

Dino's are an algae and needs confirmation with microscope.

 

I agree, in such a small tank that is new, there is no need for all those supplements. What is the reasoning for using so much?

 

Good old simple waterchanges. Less is more. 

 

If you have a large amount of gha, that could be consuming some of the nutrients but its extremely important to have available nutrients for any corals you have.

 

So if tests are reading 0 and its because algae is using it, what's left for corals?

[darksun92]

7 hours ago, DreC80 said:

If you have GHA starting to grow than you have phosphates.  They are probably being consumed by the algae so your test is showing zero.  I think you got some pretty solid advice in your original post.  Did the corals look bad with 50 ppm nitrates...or were you adding marine pure, etc to chase numbers?  In a 10 gallon tank you could drop the nitrates by a simple water change.  It sounds like you are doing too many things too fast.  I would reset...quit dosing things, pull the marine pure and just focus on stability through regular water changes.

The reason that I wanted to low my nutrients is because some sps that I put bleached in one week, there was no other reason to try to low nutrients, but I think it was too much and kill the phosphates, the water changes didn’t low my nitrates in any way even changing 30% of the water, by reset you change 100% acclimate and start again?  It wouldn’t make a cycling again? 
 

7 hours ago, Clown79 said:

Dino's are an algae and needs confirmation with microscope.

 

I agree, in such a small tank that is new, there is no need for all those supplements. What is the reasoning for using so much?

 

Good old simple waterchanges. Less is more. 

 

If you have a large amount of gha, that could be consuming some of the nutrients but its extremely important to have available nutrients for any corals you have.

 

So if tests are reading 0 and its because algae is using it, what's left for corals?

ok so first I’ll turn off the skimmer and then take out 3 spheres per day I have like 20 

[Clown79]

27 minutes ago, darksun92 said:

The reason that I wanted to low my nutrients is because some sps that I put bleached in one week, there was no other reason to try to low nutrients, but I think it was too much and kill the phosphates, the water changes didn’t low my nitrates in any way even changing 30% of the water, by reset you change 100% acclimate and start again?  It wouldn’t make a cycling again? 
 

ok so first I’ll turn off the skimmer and then take out 3 spheres per day I have like 20 

You'd know if you have dino's.

 

I don't know what you mean by spheres, I didn't suggest removing anything nor restarting your tank.

 

I asked why all the supplements? Why do you feel they are needed?

 

 

Sps bleaching isn't just from high nutrients. It can be various things. Salinity swings, alkalinity swings, lighting, high alk with low nutrients, too young of a tank.

 

 15 for nitrate isn't really high. 0 phos is definitely not good.

 

You are some how adding more into the tank than a waterchange can remove. The first thing to look at is your water source. 

 

What water are you using? 

[darksun92]

5 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

I don't know what you mean by spheres, I didn't suggest removing anything nor restarting your tank.

 

I asked why all the supplements? Why do you feel they are needed?

Sorry, I answer the question of DreC80 I have marine pure spheres for more filtration so I think 20 spheres is too much for a 10G or is that ok? 

 

7 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

 

I asked why all the supplements? Why do you feel they are needed?

I just started with the supplements cause after all of this my corals lost a lot of colors so I wanted to help them to recover a bit. 

 

10 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

 

Sps bleaching isn't just from high nutrients. It can be various things. Salinity swings, alkalinity swings, lighting, high alk with low nutrients, too young of a tank.

I have only one swing of alk as I wrote in the other post but I couldn’t have sps before and after that, about other swings most of them are under control.

 

11 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

What water are you using?

Purified water from human consumption, I test with TDS pen and it gives me 12ppm there’s no aquarium in my city that can provide me 0 TDS water, now for me a RODI filter is just too much I live in Mexico and the dollar is amazingly high.

[Clown79]

25 minutes ago, darksun92 said:

Sorry, I answer the question of DreC80 I have marine pure spheres for more filtration so I think 20 spheres is too much for a 10G or is that ok? 

 

I just started with the supplements cause after all of this my corals lost a lot of colors so I wanted to help them to recover a bit. 

 

I have only one swing of alk as I wrote in the other post but I couldn’t have sps before and after that, about other swings most of them are under control.

 

Purified water from human consumption, I test with TDS pen and it gives me 12ppm there’s no aquarium in my city that can provide me 0 TDS water, now for me a RODI filter is just too much I live in Mexico and the dollar is amazingly high.

That's where your nutrients is coming from. The water. 

[DreC80]

6 hours ago, darksun92 said:

Sorry, I answer the question of DreC80 I have marine pure spheres for more filtration so I think 20 spheres is too much for a 10G or is that ok? 

 

I just started with the supplements cause after all of this my corals lost a lot of colors so I wanted to help them to recover a bit. 

 

I have only one swing of alk as I wrote in the other post but I couldn’t have sps before and after that, about other swings most of them are under control.

 

Purified water from human consumption, I test with TDS pen and it gives me 12ppm there’s no aquarium in my city that can provide me 0 TDS water, now for me a RODI filter is just too much I live in Mexico and the dollar is amazingly high.

Do you have the ability to get distilled water?  Ideally you start with zero TDS water.  Your biological filtration is in your rock, sand, etc.  You could do a large water change and still maintain biological filtration.  The problem is when you do water changes, you are adding in nitrates and phosphates with your water.

[darksun92]

10 hours ago, Clown79 said:

That's where your nutrients is coming from. The water. 

 

4 hours ago, DreC80 said:

Do you have the ability to get distilled water?  Ideally you start with zero TDS water.  Your biological filtration is in your rock, sand, etc.  You could do a large water change and still maintain biological filtration.  The problem is when you do water changes, you are adding in nitrates and phosphates with your water.

Unfortunately there’s no good aquariums in the city and also buying a RODI is too expensive for me now, do you know if there’s that water in a place like Walmart? 

[DreC80]

I believe you can get distilled water at wal mart.  Buy a small bottle and check the TDS.  Hopefully you can find something with zero or a very low TDS.  I think it will help.

[Clown79]

33 minutes ago, darksun92 said:

 

Unfortunately there’s no good aquariums in the city and also buying a RODI is too expensive for me now, do you know if there’s that water in a place like Walmart? 

Walmart sells distilled. They have their equate brand.  Its perfectly safe. 

 

Distilled is pure water, nothing else in it. That's why many medical machines,  sanitization machines, apnea machines, spa steamers, mechanics all use distilled. 

 

 

[darksun92]

1 hour ago, DreC80 said:

I believe you can get distilled water at wal mart.  Buy a small bottle and check the TDS.  Hopefully you can find something with zero or a very low TDS.  I think it will help.

 

54 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

Walmart sells distilled. They have their equate brand.  Its perfectly safe. 

 

Distilled is pure water, nothing else in it. That's why many medical machines,  sanitization machines, apnea machines, spa steamers, mechanics all use distilled. 

 

GREAT! I'll start changing the water in my next WC tomorrow, what you recommend the next step?

[Clown79]

2 hours ago, darksun92 said:

 

GREAT! I'll start changing the water in my next WC tomorrow, what you recommend the next step?

Start with using distilled for top up and waterchanges.

 

You will start to see a difference 

[mcarroll]

On 3/25/2020 at 4:11 PM, darksun92 said:

nutrients are nitrate 15 and phosphate 0

How are you filtering and cleaning this tank?

 

On 3/25/2020 at 4:11 PM, darksun92 said:

I started to reef roids the sunday and dose Aquaforest Amino Mix and yesterday Energy (I'm starting slowly one supplement every 2 days) but there's no changes in phosphate today test was 0 phosphate again

Overfeeding (=reef roids) is not recommended to correct a situation like this.   You're adding every nutrient there is when you're only needing phosphate.  👍

 

Amino acids are a carbon source and nitrogen source -- the opposite of what you need, so stop dosing that stuff immediately.  Energy is probably in the same category....guessing it's an organic carbon source.

 

On 3/26/2020 at 12:57 PM, darksun92 said:

frozen food

This or live foods are your best best in general, all things considered.

 

On 3/26/2020 at 12:57 PM, darksun92 said:

GHA is starting to grow again. 

Remember that you cleanup crew can only eat algae films.....so if any of it has grown long, you'll have to manually pull it.  

 

Growing long also implies that your cleanup crew is too small and wasn't able to keep up with the growth.   So once you hand-pull the long stuff, add a few new herbivorous snails on to your existing cleanup crew and see how they do for a few weeks.  If the algae comes back again, repeat:  hand pull, add a few more CUC and monitor again for a few weeks.

 

On 3/27/2020 at 2:11 AM, darksun92 said:

I test with TDS pen and it gives me 12ppm

12ppm is very very clean, just not pure.  

 

If you run a phosphate and nitrate test on that water, do you get a result other than zero ppm?

 

Theres only 12 ppm of ANYTHING in there, including minerals, et al.  

 

So don't assume anything -- test.

 

On 3/27/2020 at 2:11 AM, darksun92 said:

marine pure spheres

(Again:) Please give us the full picture of how this tank is being cared for.

 

Remove 100% of the excess bio-media like this.  Your rock and sand (if any) is your bio-filter.

 

If you are running any filter media, I'd also suggest taking that off line.

 

The extra stuff is not helping (clearly!) and is not necessary.

 

But that stuff is also NOT causing your tank's high nitrates or your tank's low phosphates.  So we have to keep digging.  

 

Having a clearer picture of the tank's state of being and how it's being run will help us help you.

 

If you have access to a phosphate product like Seachem Flourish Phosphate (there are others....it's potassium phosphate...sodium phosphate would also be acceptable) then I would suggest making a correction to your phosphates that way -- it's immediate and precise so your corals can stop suffering and things in the tank can start growing.  Dose up to 0.10 ppm and re-test about 30 minutes or an hour later.  Phosphate levels may have already dropped -- if they have, calculate the proper dose to take levels back to 0.10 ppm.  (You can re-test again to be sure, but it's pretty rare for a tank to gulp down TWO doses.)

 

Can you also post a full tank shot that shows LIGHTS as well as FLOW SOURCES and any algae currently growing?

[Clown79]

11 minutes ago, mcarroll said:

How are you filtering and cleaning this tank?

 

Overfeeding (=reef roids) is not recommended to correct a situation like this.   You're adding every nutrient there is when you're only needing phosphate.  👍

 

Amino acids are a carbon source and nitrogen source -- the opposite of what you need, so stop dosing that stuff immediately.  Energy is probably in the same category....guessing it's an organic carbon source.

 

This or live foods are your best best in general, all things considered.

 

Remember that you cleanup crew can only eat algae films.....so if any of it has grown long, you'll have to manually pull it.  

 

Growing long also implies that your cleanup crew is too small and wasn't able to keep up with the growth.   So once you hand-pull the long stuff, add a few new herbivorous snails on to your existing cleanup crew and see how they do for a few weeks.  If the algae comes back again, repeat:  hand pull, add a few more CUC and monitor again for a few weeks.

 

12ppm is very very clean, just not pure.  

 

If you run a phosphate and nitrate test on that water, do you get a result other than zero ppm?

 

Theres only 12 ppm of ANYTHING in there, including minerals, et al.  

 

So don't assume anything -- test.

 

(Again:) Please give us the full picture of how this tank is being cared for.

 

Remove 100% of the excess bio-media like this.  Your rock and sand (if any) is your bio-filter.

 

If you are running any filter media, I'd also suggest taking that off line.

 

The extra stuff is not helping (clearly!) and is not necessary.

 

But that stuff is also NOT causing your tank's high nitrates or your tank's low phosphates.  So we have to keep digging.  

 

Having a clearer picture of the tank's state of being and how it's being run will help us help you.

 

If you have access to a phosphate product like Seachem Flourish Phosphate (there are others....it's potassium phosphate...sodium phosphate would also be acceptable) then I would suggest making a correction to your phosphates that way -- it's immediate and precise so your corals can stop suffering and things in the tank can start growing.  Dose up to 0.10 ppm and re-test about 30 minutes or an hour later.  Phosphate levels may have already dropped -- if they have, calculate the proper dose to take levels back to 0.10 ppm.  (You can re-test again to be sure, but it's pretty rare for a tank to gulp down TWO doses.)

 

Can you also post a full tank shot that shows LIGHTS as well as FLOW SOURCES and any algae currently growing?

I personally tried the aquaforest additives like fuel, energy etc...waste of money.

 

Did nothing but add algae, some of the products went solid in bottle even properly stored and the company didn't respond to any emails I sent.

 

I no longer use any of their stuff 

 

I did find reef roids have helped with nitrate increase but not phosphate in my tank.

[mcarroll]

6 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

I did find reef roids have helped with nitrate increase but not phosphate in my tank.

Thanks to the discovery of the Redfield Ratio (C:N:P ratio of 106:16:1), we know there's A LOT MORE nitrogen and carbon than there is phosphate in pretty much all foods.

 

Around 16 times more nitrogen (or greater) than phosphorous.  (And around 100-1000 times more phosphorous than iron!)

[darksun92]

3 hours ago, mcarroll said:

How are you filtering and cleaning this tank?

For cleaning I scrape the glass And stir the sand every 2/3 days and WC 2 gallons of water every week.

 

For filtration I run a bubble magus QQ1 skimmer that I turn off 3 days ago, 1TSPB of Phosguard, 3 TSPB of matrix carbon removed yesterday and a bag of purigen, like 15 spheres of Marine pure and 2 Drops of microbacter daily.

 

3 hours ago, mcarroll said:

This or live foods are your best best in general, all things considered.

I only have access to frozen food here in my city.

 

3 hours ago, mcarroll said:

Remember that you cleanup crew can only eat algae films.....so if any of it has grown long, you'll have to manually pull it.  

 

Growing long also implies that your cleanup crew is too small and wasn't able to keep up with the growth.   So once you hand-pull the long stuff, add a few new herbivorous snails on to your existing cleanup crew and see how they do for a few weeks.  If the algae comes back again, repeat:  hand pull, add a few more CUC and monitor again for a few weeks.

I only have 3 nassarius snails, 1 emerald crab 1 turbo snail and recently added 4 blue leg hermit crabs, I really don’t see that they eat algae around the frag corals and rocks even in the glass, that’s the only I found in the aquarium, I pull a lot of algae every WC and it grows slowly. 

 

3 hours ago, mcarroll said:

12ppm is very very clean, just not pure.  

 

If you run a phosphate and nitrate test on that water, do you get a result other than zero ppm?

 

Theres only 12 ppm of ANYTHING in there, including minerals, et al.  

 

So don't assume anything -- test.

Understand I’m going to test my salt mix before to add to the tank. 

 

3 hours ago, mcarroll said:

Remove 100% of the excess bio-media like this.  Your rock and sand (if any) is your bio-filter.

 

If you are running any filter media, I'd also suggest taking that off line.

 

The extra stuff is not helping (clearly!) and is not necessary.

 

But that stuff is also NOT causing your tank's high nitrates or your tank's low phosphates.  So we have to keep digging.  

So you recommended me to just leave nothing but my sand and rocks right? I should remove Skimmer, purigen and spheres?

 

3 hours ago, mcarroll said:

If you have access to a phosphate product like Seachem Flourish Phosphate (there are others....it's potassium phosphate...sodium phosphate would also be acceptable) then I would suggest making a correction to your phosphates that way --

The one on the image works? 
 I’m going to attach recent pictures when I’m at home this night 
 

 

[mcarroll]

3 hours ago, darksun92 said:

For cleaning I scrape the glass And stir the sand every 2/3 days and WC 2 gallons of water every week.

 

For filtration I run a bubble magus QQ1 skimmer that I turn off 3 days ago, 1TSPB of Phosguard, 3 TSPB of matrix carbon removed yesterday and a bag of purigen, like 15 spheres of Marine pure and 2 Drops of microbacter daily.

(This is the kind of info you should lead with next time.  Gold.  👍)

 

Is there something happening on the sand that it requiring that level of intense disturbance of stirring every 2/3 days?  You shouldn't have to do that, but we want to address whatever need for it you see first.  Could be a flow or other important issue causing it.

 

Protein skimmer should be on all the time if possible.   (ie OK to be off while you sleep or work near it). It's not going to hurt anything.

 

Lose the phosguard immediately.

 

Activated carbon isn't such a big deal but you really shouldn't have a need for it either at this moment.  Remove it.

 

Remove or stop doing the rest of the list -- all party fouls.

 

My guess is that fixing these few things will allow the tank to get going in the right direction.

 

How soon can you get that Phosguard out?? 😉

[mcarroll]

(not related, but is that fan over the tank actually necessary where you are?   most tanks run cool enough without a fan and just require heating nowadays.)

[darksun92]

1 hour ago, mcarroll said:

(This is the kind of info you should lead with next time.  Gold.  👍)

Sorry I forgot it 😅

 

1 hour ago, mcarroll said:

Is there something happening on the sand that it requiring that level of intense disturbance of stirring every 2/3 days?  You shouldn't have to do that, but we want to address whatever need for it you see first.  Could be a flow or other important issue causing it.

I try to clean the algae on the sand and clean the detritus, I can’t siphon cause all my coral plugs are on the sand.

 

1 hour ago, mcarroll said:

Protein skimmer should be on all the time if possible.   (ie OK to be off while you sleep or work near it). It's not going to hurt anything.

I turned off to avoid to export the phosphate (because I’m in 0 now) and don’t decrease my nitrate to 0, the tank is just 10G and the skimmer Is made for 25G, so if I turn on again there’s no risk to decrease my nitrate to 0 or avoid to rise the phosphate? 
 

1 hour ago, mcarroll said:

Lose the phosguard immediately.

 

Activated carbon isn't such a big deal but you really shouldn't have a need for it either at this moment.  Remove it.

Done, both were in a media bag. 
 

1 hour ago, mcarroll said:

Remove or stop doing the rest of the list -- all party fouls.

 

My guess is that fixing these few things will allow the tank to get going in the right direction.

So I need to remove marine pure spheres too? Purigen out, stop dosing supplements and stop to reef roids? 

 

1 hour ago, mcarroll said:

How soon can you get that Phosguard out?? 😉

5 minutes ago 🤣

 

1 hour ago, mcarroll said:

not related, but is that fan over the tank actually necessary where you are?   most tanks run cool enough without a fan and just require heating nowadays.)

Here in the room the water temperature can rise to 85 or even more, with the fan on it rarely low to 83 or 82 so yes is pretty important here. 
thanks!