Low nitrate problems for several years

[roblox84]

My last 4 reef tanks throughout the years all had low nitrate problems. In 12 plus frustrating years my corals were dying or not growing because of that I'm assuming. 

 

Come to think of it I only had one semi successful tank which was my very first reef and looking back now I remember I was broadcast feeding it daily and corals were growing like weeds, but then I was dealing with bad hair algae so that's why that one got tore down. I started up several tanks between now and then and the only time my corals seemed to grow was when the tank was brand new just after a cycle when nitrates were still high, I assume. Then a few weeks later growth would be pretty much non existent for majority of the corals for the life of the tank. I would try so many things, turning skimmers off for weeks, forgoing water changes, removing filter socks and still nothing worked. 

 

Fast forward to today I just checked the nitrates in my 5 gallon and after 3 months or more they are still at 0. I thought nitrates were a given in a reef tank? Obviously my nitrites are being converted because they are at 0 so how can nitrates just disappear like that? I have had no filtration on this tank besides live rock.

[DreC80]

That's a tough one, unless all your tanks have had an algae problem.  Normally I would say bad test kit or testing error...but that's probably not the case over 12 years.  Have you tried dosing nitrates?  I know some folks have to.  Just interested to see if you could actually dose it to the point where whatever is utilizing it would get saturated to the point where you would get readings.  

[roblox84]

14 minutes ago, DreC80 said:

That's a tough one, unless all your tanks have had an algae problem.  Normally I would say bad test kit or testing error...but that's probably not the case over 12 years.  Have you tried dosing nitrates?  I know some folks have to.  Just interested to see if you could actually dose it to the point where whatever is utilizing it would get saturated to the point where you would get readings.  

I've been browsing these forums for many years and it seems like I'm the only person with this issue. I probably should've given up years ago but I'm stubborn. But it's definitely not testing error as I've used many brands of test kits over the years both electronic and liquid and even had fish stores test some.

 

I've never tried dosing nitrates, maybe I should start. What could be using nitrates like that in my tanks? Funny thing is it seems I always seem to have highish phosphates in my tanks, just enough to cause annoying hair algae growth. So I have no nitrates but enough phosphates to the point were I have to do enough water changes to get rid of phosphates but at the same time not allowing any nitrates to accumulate.

[DreC80]

Hard to say...the algae is definitely consuming some of it.  Are your phosphates and nitrates in line with the red field ratio?  If your phosphates are truly higher than nitrates then they are not balanced.  Have you ever had dinos?  From my understanding dinos can occur when the ratio is off.

 

I've read on forums that there are folks out there who routinely have to dose nitrates and others have to dose phosphates to keep the levels high enough and not starve their corals.

 

I'm wondering if you get an initial nitrate reading before algae starts growing and consuming it.

 

Just throwing some ideas out there, but you could give nitrate dosing a shot.  

[roblox84]

1 minute ago, DreC80 said:

Hard to say...the algae is definitely consuming some of it.  Are your phosphates and nitrates in line with the red field ratio?  If your phosphates are truly higher than nitrates then they are not balanced.  Have you ever had dinos?  From my understanding dinos can occur when the ratio is off.

 

I've read on forums that there are folks out there who routinely have to dose nitrates and others have to dose phosphates to keep the levels high enough and not starve their corals.

 

I'm wondering if you get an initial nitrate reading before algae starts growing and consuming it.

 

Just throwing some ideas out there, but you could give nitrate dosing a shot.  

My phosphates and nitrates definitely aren't balanced, phosphates were always detectable nitrates weren't. I remember having dinos in my 28g a while back that had the same nitrate issue, it was a bad outbreak. I can't remember in the tanks before that though.

 

My current 5 gallon I think had dinos a while back when it was fairly new but currently there isn't much algae except for a patch of hair algae and some other algae here and there that I'm able to pick of easily and keep it at bay.

 

I will give nitrate dosing a shot if that's what you recommend. It's pretty much the only option I have left besides broadcast feeding the tank. I appreciate your help.

[Thrassian Atoll]

I have always had issues with low nitrate and phosphate.  I do now in my Waterbox 130.4.  I have 8 fish currently and will be bumping that to 11 soon. I feed 3 times a day with frozen, flake and pellet.  My filtration is just a skimmer and Carbon.  Anyways, I check phosphate and nitrate regularly and I have to dose neonitro and neophos to keep my nitrate around 10 and phosphate around .05.  Hopefully with more fish I should not have to dose anymore.  

[roblox84]

16 minutes ago, Thrassian Atoll said:

I have always had issues with low nitrate and phosphate.  I do now in my Waterbox 130.4.  I have 8 fish currently and will be bumping that to 11 soon. I feed 3 times a day with frozen, flake and pellet.  My filtration is just a skimmer and Carbon.  Anyways, I check phosphate and nitrate regularly and I have to dose neonitro and neophos to keep my nitrate around 10 and phosphate around .05.  Hopefully with more fish I should not have to dose anymore.  

Thanks for your input. I have a 20 gallon waterbox cycling, they are such nice looking tanks. I plan on having 3 fish, azure damsel, orchid dottyback and 6 line wrasse. Hopefully they'll be able to coexist.

 

Right now I'm placing an order for Neo Nitro. We'll see how it goes, but I'm feeling pretty confident that it should fix my coral problems. 

[mcarroll]

2 hours ago, roblox84 said:

My last 4 reef tanks throughout the years all had low nitrate problems. In 12 plus frustrating years my corals were dying or not growing because of that I'm assuming. 

 

Come to think of it I only had one semi successful tank which was my very first reef and looking back now I remember I was broadcast feeding it daily and corals were growing like weeds, but then I was dealing with bad hair algae so that's why that one got tore down. I started up several tanks between now and then and the only time my corals seemed to grow was when the tank was brand new just after a cycle when nitrates were still high, I assume. Then a few weeks later growth would be pretty much non existent for majority of the corals for the life of the tank. I would try so many things, turning skimmers off for weeks, forgoing water changes, removing filter socks and still nothing worked.

A well balanced, lightly stocked, mature tank might show zero's in nutrient tests.  Barring disturbances, reefs ultimately end up with nutrient-recycling superpowers as they mature – everything is tied up in biomass that is in thorough competition, in every ecological sense of that word.

 

A hair algae problem sounds like a tank that was probably started with little or no biodiversity and which was probably stocked too quickly, possibly with too many fish.

 

A tank lasting about a year is almost stereotypical for many new reefkeepers.  That's about as long as a tank can last with the very minimums of care...something fundamental was missing or wrong.  It wasn't just a lack of nitrates – lots of factors could have been throwing you off.  Too hard to say precisely what in retrospect though.

 

2 hours ago, roblox84 said:

Fast forward to today I just checked the nitrates in my 5 gallon and after 3 months or more they are still at 0. I thought nitrates were a given in a reef tank? Obviously my nitrites are being converted because they are at 0 so how can nitrates just disappear like that? I have had no filtration on this tank besides live rock.

Nitrogen gets used in HUGE quantities (see: the Redfield Ratio) when a reef tank is growing in.  Plus live rock and other substrates slowly denitrify NO3 into dissolved-N2 gas that can escape the tank via the air.

 

Can you fill us in with a summary of the tank's history/set up as well as maintenance routines you're keeping?

 

Please include a tank pic that shows as much as possible, and list the livestock as completely as you can.  What are you feeding the tank?  👍

[mcarroll]

1 hour ago, roblox84 said:

I've been browsing these forums for many years and it seems like I'm the only person with this issue.

Check out Marine Aquarium Handbook Beginner to Breeder.  His stuff is available on eBook too.

 

1 hour ago, roblox84 said:

Funny thing is it seems I always seem to have highish phosphates in my tanks, just enough to cause annoying hair algae growth.

It seems to me that funny things think that always deserve extra attention...your gut was making you notice something.  👍

 

The fact is that if your ecosystem is good for growing coral, then it's ALSO by definition going to be good for growing hair algae.

 

Hair algae and corals enjoy the same growing conditions....so hair algae is often one of the early signs of success for a tank -- that it's ecologically heading in the right direction for coral.

 

Disturbances often cause algae blooms in the wild, but herbivores make the difference as to whether a territory becomes overgrown with algae or not.  Herbivores = Coral Reefs.  Inadequate Herbivores = Algae Reefs.

 

At home, setting up the tank is the "disturbance" that everything is trying to recover from (assuming everything goes well during setup)...algae often blooms...herbivory is often inadequate....so corals often suffer while algae dominate.

 

Thankfully we have control over every one of those troublesome phases, so each one can be limited or avoided altogether in some cases.  Start by being aware of the disturbances you case.  Then make every disturbance you cause as small and infrequent as possible.  At the same time you will learn to maximize the quality of the tank's intrinsic factors like light, flow and water chemistry.

[Clown79]

2 hours ago, roblox84 said:

I've been browsing these forums for many years and it seems like I'm the only person with this issue. I probably should've given up years ago but I'm stubborn. But it's definitely not testing error as I've used many brands of test kits over the years both electronic and liquid and even had fish stores test some.

 

I've never tried dosing nitrates, maybe I should start. What could be using nitrates like that in my tanks? Funny thing is it seems I always seem to have highish phosphates in my tanks, just enough to cause annoying hair algae growth. So I have no nitrates but enough phosphates to the point were I have to do enough water changes to get rid of phosphates but at the same time not allowing any nitrates to accumulate.

You're not alone. Many of us struggle keeping nutrients.

 

I've reduced waterchange frequency/size, feed fish 2 times a day, dose phyto weekly, feed reef roids 2- 3 times a week, run only carbon and floss- and my nitrate is barely 2! My phos is high though.

 

 

[Thrassian Atoll]

1 hour ago, roblox84 said:

Thanks for your input. I have a 20 gallon waterbox cycling, they are such nice looking tanks. I plan on having 3 fish, azure damsel, orchid dottyback and 6 line wrasse. Hopefully they'll be able to coexist.

 

Right now I'm placing an order for Neo Nitro. We'll see how it goes, but I'm feeling pretty confident that it should fix my coral problems. 

Those 3 fish are all pretty dominant.  I would think all of them should hold there own.  Give the neonitro a try.  It’s worked well for me.

[roblox84]

5 hours ago, mcarroll said:

A well balanced, lightly stocked, mature tank might show zero's in nutrient tests.  Barring disturbances, reefs ultimately end up with nutrient-recycling superpowers as they mature – everything is tied up in biomass that is in thorough competition, in every ecological sense of that word.

 

A hair algae problem sounds like a tank that was probably started with little or no biodiversity and which was probably stocked too quickly, possibly with too many fish.

 

A tank lasting about a year is almost stereotypical for many new reefkeepers.  That's about as long as a tank can last with the very minimums of care...something fundamental was missing or wrong.  It wasn't just a lack of nitrates – lots of factors could have been throwing you off.  Too hard to say precisely what in retrospect though.

 

Nitrogen gets used in HUGE quantities (see: the Redfield Ratio) when a reef tank is growing in.  Plus live rock and other substrates slowly denitrify NO3 into dissolved-N2 gas that can escape the tank via the air.

 

Can you fill us in with a summary of the tank's history/set up as well as maintenance routines you're keeping?

 

Please include a tank pic that shows as much as possible, and list the livestock as completely as you can.  What are you feeding the tank?  👍

My most recent pic taken a few days ago. The 5 gallon is my only tank at the moment, it was started with live rock so all livestock was put in after cycling in October.

 

I have 2 nassarius snails, 1 clown, 1 bubble tip anemone, mushroom coral, scroll coral, star polyps, zoas and acans.

 

My maintenance is change approximately 2 gallons of water every week, blow off the rocks and feed the clown 4 pellets of new life spectrum food.

[roblox84]

This picture is from October, not all coral frags were put in yet. As you can see the mushroom corals barely spread in those 6 months, 2 new mushrooms i think. I might have gotten 2-3 heads of zoas in the same time and the star polyps have barely came out at all. The star polyps have not attached and spread to anything yet either. In the other pic you can see the acan lost a few heads at one point but it's slowly healing. Also it seems the anemone used to be more green, now it's red with much less green.

 

[mcarroll]

What are your test kits showing currently for specific gravity, calcium, alkalinity, magnesium, phosphates and nitrates?

 

On 4/20/2020 at 1:29 AM, roblox84 said:

The 5 gallon is my only tank at the moment, it was started with live rock so all livestock was put in after cycling in October.

 

I have 2 nassarius snails, 1 clown, 1 bubble tip anemone, mushroom coral, scroll coral, star polyps, zoas and acans.

5 isn't a lot of gallons to keep fish and a sea anemone.  IMO you might want to consider an easier combo, or move this livestock up to at least a 20 Gallon.  The anemone is the main problem.  If you managed to be successful at keeping it, the anemone would outgrow your tank in as little as a few months. Hypothetically the rest are okay without the anemone...clownfish can be nasty sometimes when they don't have an area/rock/coral/anemone to host them....or maybe they're always nasty, but at least when they are being hosted, the confine their aggression to whatever they are calling home.

 

2 Nassarius snails would be a fine scavenger crew in a larger tank that had a detritus problem.  

 

For your tank, unless you enjoy doing the work of your missing herbivore, I'd ask the LFS if they can swap your Nassarius snails for some Cerith, Nerite, Trochus, Turbo, etc. 😉

 

Let us know on the current test results!

[roblox84]

On 4/21/2020 at 1:42 PM, mcarroll said:

What are your test kits showing currently for specific gravity, calcium, alkalinity, magnesium, phosphates and nitrates?

 

5 isn't a lot of gallons to keep fish and a sea anemone.  IMO you might want to consider an easier combo, or move this livestock up to at least a 20 Gallon.  The anemone is the main problem.  If you managed to be successful at keeping it, the anemone would outgrow your tank in as little as a few months. Hypothetically the rest are okay without the anemone...clownfish can be nasty sometimes when they don't have an area/rock/coral/anemone to host them....or maybe they're always nasty, but at least when they are being hosted, the confine their aggression to whatever they are calling home.

 

2 Nassarius snails would be a fine scavenger crew in a larger tank that had a detritus problem.  

 

For your tank, unless you enjoy doing the work of your missing herbivore, I'd ask the LFS if they can swap your Nassarius snails for some Cerith, Nerite, Trochus, Turbo, etc. 😉

 

Let us know on the current test results!

Calcium tests at about 400 and alk at 8-9, i don't have a magnesium or phosphate test any longer. I change half of the water which is about 2 gallons every week so there is very little if any fluctuation in the tests.

 

You're right about the clownfish, I haven't had one that wasn't nasty. Even though this one has an anenome it still darts across the tank to attack my hand.

 

I'll definitely be getting some herbivores hopefully soon when this lockdown ends.