I'm confused about how much nitrates and phosphates we want

[mje113]

Coming from my experience from over a decade ago I always thought we wanted to export these either by water changes, macro algae, or chemical filters. But as I've been pouring over the forums I'm seeing a lot of advice to remove things like chemipure and that we want more nutrients in the water column.

 

is there a good resource someone can recommend about ideal levels in our tanks? I think I might have early signs of green hair algae, so seeing recommendations here on reducing nitrate and phos as a way to combat it... however I just tested and my API test is showing zero for both. (Hanna tests will arrive Thursday). I'm so confused.

 

 

[Reefkid88]

Realistically,5-10ppm nitrates and .03-.06ppm phosphates is ideal. I think when I first got into the hobby back in 2012ish everyone strived for 0ppm on both,but after some people had some mishaps and params got up and their SPS gained TONS of color and growth,people rethought everything. Thats my theory. 

 

 Me personally,I have always kept a dirtier tank and had great results. 

 

 I have learned though,it doesn't really matter what your params are as long they are steady at that said number you will be fine. 

[seabass]

I found that dealing dinoflagellates has done a lot to change recommendations, as low nutrient levels can shift the balance to favor dinos.  Also, like Reefkid88 stated, corals do much better with measurable inorganic nutrients.

 

I wouldn't necessarily consider nutrients as dirty.  I'd reserve that label for a tank that's rich in organic wastes.  I feel that detritus/organics might be a bigger concern than nutrients.

 

Like Reefkid88, I feel that there are minimum levels in which corals do better (at least 0.03 ppm of phosphate, and at least 3 ppm of nitrate).  Higher levels being better than lower levels.

 

Starving algae leads to starving corals.  To deal with algae, I'd recommend more herbivores and manual removal.

[Tamberav]

+1 above. 
 

The major shift in the hobby was live rock no longer being brought in and people started using dry. Once that happened, people came to the realization that without all that life encrusted on the rock… it left open for nasty competitors like Dino to thrive at low nutrients and ability to starve corals. 
 

When measuring, 0 in a tank with live rock 20 years old is different then 0 in a dry rock tank that is 4 years old due to diversity. 

[Tired]

Sometimes 0 measurable nutrients means that everything is being used up as soon as it's available, sometimes it means there are no nutrients available. 

 

Lack of available nutrients favors hardy pest algae over the less hardy, more well-behaved algaes that you want on your rocks. High nutrients can also encourage pest algae, so, if your nutrients are too high, lowering them can be good to help against pest algae. If they aren't too high, lowering them just hurts things. 

 

For hair algae, make sure your cleanup crew is an appropriate size, and manually pull out any long tufts of algae. It's hard for them to eat the long stuff. If you place a snail directly on a just-plucked patch of hair algae, it might help clean up the rest. 

 

You'll find a lot of different opinions on nutrient levels, partly because different levels work for different tanks. But you'd be hard pressed to find a tank that doesn't do well with phosphate at 0.03-0.06ppm and nitrates at 5-10ppm. And, if anything, some tanks would prefer more. Soft corals like lots of available nutrients. The best approach to nutrient levels is to make sure you always have at least that minimum, and watch the tank. If everything's happy and behaving, your nutrient levels are fine, no matter the number. High nutrients and too much algae, might need to lower nutrients a little. 

[mje113]

Got my Hanna Nitrate and Phosphate tests and N is 0.1 and P is still 0.

 

I'm only running carbon... anything I should do to shift those values? I wouldn't say I'm shy about how much I feed the fish.

[seabass]

2 hours ago, mje113 said:

anything I should do to shift those values?

• Brightwell Aquatics - NeoNitro
• Brightwell Aquatics - NeoPhos

[mje113]

15 minutes ago, seabass said:

• Brightwell Aquatics - NeoNitro
• Brightwell Aquatics - NeoPhos

Thanks! I presume over time things will balance?

[Jakesaw]

5 minutes ago, mje113 said:

Thanks! I presume over time things will balance?

Over time it will balance, but not necessarily where you want it to. 

 

Bioload of how much life you have in the tank respirating and pooping, how much you feed or overfeed your tank, water change frequency, filtration all play into where your tank balances out. 

[Tired]

Get that phosphate up, quick! 

 

The aspect of a tank that will balance itself with time is the microfauna. If you keep nutrients at a reasonable level, algae and bacteria will figure out an equilibrium, and will generally arrive at somewhere that's useful for a reef tank. Eventually. Nutrients don't do that, because nutrients aren't living things. You have to figure out the right amount of food to put into the tank, and the right amount of nutrients to take out. 

[mje113]

12 hours ago, Tired said:

Get that phosphate up, quick! 

I'm getting Nitro today and phos later in the week... LFS was out of both. There's another one I can check if it's something I can't wait for or need do dose both in parallel.

[Tired]

Phosphate later this week is probably okay? But feed heavily until then. Whatever you have in that tank that will eat food, give it food. Fish, corals, hermits, anything. 

 

I'm not sure if 0 phosphates and some nitrates is better than 0 of both. 

[mje113]

4 minutes ago, Tired said:

Phosphate later this week is probably okay? But feed heavily until then. Whatever you have in that tank that will eat food, give it food. Fish, corals, hermits, anything. 

 

I'm not sure if 0 phosphates and some nitrates is better than 0 of both. 

I do feed pretty heavy but will step it up. Any chance more bio filter material in the back help? I have a lot but was worried it would be a "nitrate factory" but it sounds like that's what I need?

[mje113]

Huh, nitrate is back to 0, but at least phos is up to 0.09. Been feeding pretty heavily last few days.

 

 

 

 

[ninjamyst]

On 6/11/2022 at 10:44 AM, mje113 said:

I do feed pretty heavy but will step it up. Any chance more bio filter material in the back help? I have a lot but was worried it would be a "nitrate factory" but it sounds like that's what I need?

Bio filter media will further reduce nitrate.  Opposite of what you want right now 

[Jakesaw]

On the topic,, I visited my local coral frag retail store and found out they run their system on at 15 for Nitrate.  Don't remember what they run their phos at.

 

I dosed my Nitrate for first time today with Neo Nitrate- going to measure tomorrow to see how close I could get to 15.  If I get close, gonna dose Phos to try and get around .10

 

 

 

 

[seabass]

Just keep in mind that higher nutrient levels should help all photosynthetic life (including problem algae species).  More herbivorous animals and manual removal could be required to help keep things under control, especially in younger tanks.  As a tank matures, you might naturally see it work out a more favorable balance where macroalgae doesn't seem to have the upper hand (with coralline algae and coral taking the lead).

[Jakesaw]

Neo-Nitro works well.  After dosing for first time yesterday - my levels in tank moved up the appropriate amount per label instructions.  I'm in the 10-15 range per Salifert test kits. 

 

Today I will dose neo-phos hoping for similar results.

[mje113]

16 minutes ago, Jakesaw said:

Neo Nitrate works well.  After dosing for first time yesterday - my levels in tank moved up the appropriate amount per label instructions.  I'm in the 10-15 range per Salifert test kits. 

Curious, how much did you dose? Going by their calculations on the bottle I came up with 5ml for my 13.5g, but decided to stick to 2.5 and see where that lands me. I'll test again in a bit.

 

If I'm chasing higher nutrients, should I be skipping water changes? I'm a few days past "weekly" thinking I should skip until levels are better.

[Jakesaw]

14 minutes ago, mje113 said:

Curious, how much did you dose? Going by their calculations on the bottle I came up with 5ml for my 13.5g, but decided to stick to 2.5 and see where that lands me. I'll test again in a bit.

 

If I'm chasing higher nutrients, should I be skipping water changes? I'm a few days past "weekly" thinking I should skip until levels are better.

My tank is 10 gal and I recently added a Skimmer running water a little low and factored in Rock guesstimate  I So I used 7 gallons of water and applied the calculation from Label Directions- added 8 ml.  Raised me from 2 to 10-15 level ( salifert test ) within 24 hour period.

 

I'm using the stronger formula per product label. 

[Jakesaw]

15 minutes ago, mje113 said:

If I'm chasing higher nutrients, should I be skipping water changes? I'm a few days past "weekly" thinking I should skip until levels are better.

Weekly water changes will lower nutrients via dilution proportional to water changed.  Can't say what is right for your tank in terms of WC.  You do have to find a balance that works with your tank via bio-load of fish - coral - feeding / water changes / etc.

 

It's why we Test.  Every tank is different.

 

I just added nano-skimmer this week after a year in the hobby and am learning how to balance my tank nutrients with new setup.

[seabass]

1 hour ago, mje113 said:

should I be skipping water changes? I'm a few days past "weekly"

I've switched from thinking that weekly water changes are required, to weekly maintenance is "recommended".  You might be asking, "aren't they the same thing?"  Well... not necessarily.

 

Changing a specific volume of water each week isn't as effective as siphoning out wastes during maintenance, then replacing the lost water.  The later is what I'd recommend.  You want to export organic wastes, not perfectly good water.  However, if you just need to reduce your inorganic nutrients (for example, due to phosphate over 2 ppm or nitrate well over 20 ppm), then you can simply exchange water to lower those levels.

[mje113]

Haha, well, still showing 0 Nitrates despite dosing yesterday. Should I remove the carbon? Any chance that's pulling it out?

[seabass]

1 hour ago, mje113 said:

Haha, well, still showing 0 Nitrates despite dosing yesterday. Should I remove the carbon? Any chance that's pulling it out?

Activated carbon will not be removing nitrate.  Photosynthetic life will utilize nitrate.  Also, denitrifying bacteria can convert it into nitrogen gas; however, this requires anaerobic (oxygen deprived) conditions like in a deep sand bed.  Carbon (different from activated carbon) dosing can provide certain strains of bacteria the carbon it needs to utilize nitrate (and to a lesser extent, phosphate).

 

Note: Nitrite should normally be undetectable.  So make sure that you are testing for NO3 and not NO2.

[mje113]

Hey Hey, I actually have something going on:

 

NO3: 1.5

PHO: 0.07

 

I think I'll continue dosing NeoNitro and add NeoPhos when it arrives on Thursday.