Acceptable Soft Coral Nitrate Levels?

[sledge760]

I am running a 156 gallon Oceanic Reef tank with mainly a mix of soft corals and a couple LPS. I struggle to keep nitrates at the 20PPM mark but mainly they stay 15-20PPM. What would be considered the maximum safe nitrate level for softies? All other levels are good.

 

[mak3mydae]

Ideally, none. How long has your system been running? 20 seems very high. IIRC, they start to get pretty bad over 10?

 

[sledge760]

System has been up for 10 months.

 

[keno1984]

everyone says shoot for 0 but honestly i've seen tanks with nitrates up to 35 in a softy tank and everything looked amazing. but anything other then softies would def not do.

 

[sledge760]

I really don't understand how you can have 0 nitrates in any tank. How is that even possible? I am real good with tank maintenance and water changes but no way 0.

 

[Gill_bucket]

What is your bio load like? How many fish how big?

 

[sledge760]

6" Sohal tang
4" Hippo tang
3' Kole tang
5" Naso tang.
4 various small Damsels.
12 soft corals
2 LPS

 

[scuba guy ron]

15-20 is ok as long a you keep up on water changes. I've had mine 10-15 for 3 years now with no problems or algae blooms.

 

[NYC/NJREEFS]

Nitrates

Nitrates

I have a 72ga bowfront w/20ga sump, I keep mostly softies and LPS. My water changes occur weekly approx. 20ga and I avoid overfeedig, I actually feel guilty sometimes. :strange: However my trates are never below 10ppm they slowly creep up to 20ppm by the time of the next water change and I feel like everthing is doing well.

 

[kingfisher62]

I also beleive that a lot of softies thrive on a tank with some nitrates. The one thing you should concern yourself with is with higher nitrates algae can start to take over and choke out your corals. So even though I do not think the higher trates will bother your softies you should still work on lowering those trates.

 

[sledge760]

I will start doing more water changes to bring down nitrates. I will tell you one thing though, my xenia are loving the water. I am seeing new polyps every day and the existing polyps are fully extended almost all day.

 

[kingfisher62]

Xenia do like dirty water!

 

[RealReef7]

I currently have mine at 5ppm and my softies love it especially the neon toads and yellow fiji leathers. 20ppm seems WAY high, 4 good sized tangs poop alot... hate to say it but you might have to cut down on the bioload.

 

[shifty51008]

when I had my softies I would try to keep my nirtates at 20 or a little above, that seemed to be the spot where the looked the best and also grew the best. but I do agree other than softies you will want your nitrates much lower.

 

[Nanook]

My nitrates have been 40-50 for months now because I can't get them down yet. So far, all the softies look like they are doing good. Not growing like they were for a long time, but not dying either. I am still working with the denitrator to get the nitrates down to near 5-10.

 

[siren]

I guess I have a different view on this subject. I like dirtier water personally. The nitrates in my soft coral tank hover between 80-90 and I see some crazy growth. IMO, the dirtier the water, the more there is to eat. To a point anyway.

 

[sledge760]

Wow. 80-90ppm. I sort of agree with your comment, though at least for the softies. Again, my xenia, cabbage, finger leather and zoa's are doing great.

On the other hand, I have a couple of LPS, with the exception of a torch (doing great) that look like crap. A trumpet, long tentacle plate (almost dead) and pagoda that are not doing well at all.

 

[siren]

I have the same issues. I have trouble with a few LPS in my tank. Right now though, I have a frogspawn, lobo, blastos, and a plate all doing well. In my other tanks where I keep all my hard corals, I keep the nitrates down around 5.