Dosed Nitrate for richer color - woke up to pale corals...why?

[koral_lover]

My nitrates have been tough to get up to detectable levels. I literally have been dumping in the food it seems. Nitrates still wouldn't raise and I was having to clean the green film on the glass daily, which means I likely had a bunch of phosphates.

I decided to dose nitrates yesterday and I think I may have dosed too much too fast. In short, my nitrates are at 10 ppm now. What is strange are my corals are suddenly very pale and look to be on the verge of rtn (noticed this today after work)... I also noticed my glass was spotless. Did dosing my tank up to 10 ppm cause a sudden drop in phosphate, similar to an effect adding too much GFO would have? Any ideas for plan of action to get my corals away from death's door? Water change? Feed heavy? Dose Aminos? Do nothing?

I need to stop messing with stuff...

 

[Pife]

You should test your water and tell us the answers.

 

[oldbones]

Hmm, watching with much interest! I just started KNO3 dosing last night as well. No change noted yet.

 

[tripdad]

"I need to stop messing with stuff..."

Good luck with that one, I think it's in our obsessive nature to mess with stuff, we all do it. Just for info I aim for a levels of .04 : 1 , Po4 to No3 respectively or any multiple of this but maintaining that ratio. As far as the Acro's go, they are fickle beast, best of luck.

 

[Ross33]

I've messed around with dosing potassium nitrate as well. I am in the same position as you. Nitrates are undetectablel no matter how much I feed. I have noticed that my purple haze monti does not like the nitrate dosing at all and almost dies when I dose even a little bit. I'm contemplating zeovit or adding a bunch of fish

 

[markalot]

I don't know anything about your tank but if you were nitrate limited and dosed it's possible PO4 dropped too low, especially likely if you are carbon dosing IMO.

 

[rovster]

I don't know anything about your tank but if you were nitrate limited and dosed it's possible PO4 dropped too low, especially likely if you are carbon dosing IMO.

This can happen although that's pretty quick. Definitely something to look into...

 

[koral_lover]

don't have a hanna phosphate checker - but going on day three with no film algae on glass, whereas prior to my overdose of sodium nitrate, I had to clean it daily....regardless, my corals didn't respond well..no STN/RTN, I think they will hold on, but they paled considerably after the overdose.

My red dragon and birdsnest corals seemed to have been hit the hardest - I stopped dosing two part in hopes of letting my alk drop some (from 9.5 dkh closer to 8 dkh) as I feel my phosphates are near 0 suddenly...

Unfortunately I am having a hard time achieving the deep coloration one of my first tanks had - the only difference between that tank and my current situation was that tank happened to be overstocked with fish and had a crappy skimmer...I thought I could get around this, but in the end I think I will need to go stock up on fish.

In short - dosing nitrate can be detrimental if done too fast and isn't the magic potion for deep coloration I thought it would be :twitch:

I am at lost for why I never have nitrates no matter how much food I throw in...fish poop must be > rotting food

I need some small fish that poop like tangs...

 

[oldbones]

Seems like a bit of a short trial to be throwing in the towel already!

I am definitely in a similar situation to you. My tank is 56g, and not big enough for tangs and the like. I've got six fish in the tank, but they are all small (firefish, Mckoskers Wrasse, Starry Blenny, Yellow Assessor, Royal Gramma and Blue Chromis) and don't seem to mess the water very much. Feeding heavy just results in lots of food rotting in my rock or in the sump. Nitrates in the 8 month old tank were zero, with phosphates also very low.

I'm only about 48 hours in with the KNO3 dosing, and started off more slowly than you. I'm sitting at about 2ppm now, and no real marked visible effect on the tank as of yet.

I tried to mix my KNO3 solution to 1 mole NO3, using a ratio of 18 teaspoons to 1 liter of water. Starting dose was 5ml day one, 7 ml day two and now 4 ml day three.

 

[offdahooklikeoj]

What size tank do you have and what is you live stock list?