High nitrates and 0 p04s! Please help.

[Pife]

To start from the beginning of how this happened my tank has been running just fine and then I seen some dinoflagellates creeping in so I did a 3 day black out and ran heavy carbon after. My nitrates shot to 100 within 2 days. I did what I didn't want to do and dosed some vinegar. Things in the tank really perked up so I put it on a dosing pump and started dosing it around the clock. I measured my nitrates but I cannot remember what they were. I think they were 26 on a Hanna phosphorus meter. Everything was going good with the carbon dosing, nitrates were creeping down slow and steady. So I performed a 50 gallon water change on my 200 gallon system. I have one coral reef raft Rainbow loam stn on me. I'll take it because that's a very small casualty in the grand scheme of things. I also started dosing some bacteria in the form of aquaforest Pro bio s and Fritz denitrifying 9. Yesterday the tank clouded up with a bacterial bloom and my skimmer began overflowing. I emptied it and turned it down and within 20 minutes it was overflowing again so I shut it off. My filter socks could only be ran for an hour and a half to two hours before they were clogged with what I assume to be bacteria. I left them in the tank water but pulled them out so that water could circulate easily through my sump. I also cut vinegar dosing in half to half 400 milliliters per day. Today when I get home from work and after I put my son to bed I went downstairs to check on the tank and I have multiple deaths. The tank is still cloudy with bacteria I have opened my skimmer completely up so that I can at least run it to oxygenate the water. I tested nitrates and they have came down farther but not expected my phosphates have completely bottomed out. I've tested them with two different test kits. What do you think I can dose to raise my phosphates? Or should I just feed extra-heavy? I fed my normal schedule tonight roughly 6 cubes of mysis Plus 4 heaping spoon fulls of reef chilli as it always adds to my phosphates. Any help or Insight would be greatly recommended. I plan to cease dosing of my vinegar right now. And to kick it all off I leave for a week vacation in a little over 30 hours. I do have very experienced reefers standing by and caring for my system.

 

[Scorpius]

If you're looking to raise P04 flake food is full of it.

 

[Pife]

Alk has went up a point so I backed the calcium reactor down. This with the p04s are all it takes to have casualties.

 

[jda]

Don't do anything before you leave except for maybe change some water.

What are your actual parameters - and with what test kits. Hard to believe that you have 0 P with 100 N. Do you have a hannah ultra-low test kit. Also, what are you doing right now? Some vinegar?

How old is your tank? Nearly all tanks with established rock and sand can keep N very near 0 and most have to feed really hard to get it up a bit, but then it will go back down to zero if they ease up for a day or two. Is it possible that the tank is pretty new?

 

[Pife]

Don't do anything before you leave except for maybe change some water.

What are your actual parameters - and with what test kits. Hard to believe that you have 0 P with 100 N. Do you have a hannah ultra-low test kit. Also, what are you doing right now? Some vinegar?

How old is your tank? Nearly all tanks with established rock and sand can keep N very near 0 and most have to feed really hard to get it up a bit, but then it will go back down to zero if they ease up for a day or two. Is it possible that the tank is pretty new?

Yes I do. They are 0 in the hanna phosphorus low range meter that measures in parts per billion. I am also getting zero on salifert with even doubling the reagents. Nitrates have came down to I would say between 30 and 40 now. I've cut all dosing and slowed my calcium reactor down big time maybe more after testing tonight.

My system is around 3 years old. I typically have to feed a ton to keep nutrients up. I believe that the dinoflagellates dumped a ton of nutrients into the water. It's been a week and since I'm p04 limited it isn't very likely the nitrates are going to drop anymore.

 

[jda]

The nitrates can still be converted to gas by the anoxic bacteria in the sand and rock without phosphates... you just might not grow any new waterborne bacteria to skim even if you increased organic carbon.

You are probably right about the dying dinos releasing all of the N. It is very rare IME to see higher N with 0 P, but ULR Hanna don't lie.

I'll bet that they are more like 5 or 10 when you get back from vacation and the P might be up a bit to .005 or .01 when the vinegar stops.

 

[Myka]

How long did it take you to get to 800 mL vinegar? Now you cut in half to 400 mL? Are you still dosing bacteria? I would stop bacteria dosing.

If I were you I wouldn't change anything more. Revisit the condition when you come back. If your fish eat pellets I'd switch to pellets for the week you're gone to help get some PO4, but otherwise, just let it chill and percolate.

 

[Pife]

Well the tank has cleared up. Nitrates are sitting around 30ish. Alk was stable over 24 hours but is high but I'm happy it didn't go up more. I have a slight p04 in the system now which is great. Rtn has appeared to stop in a coral or two and nothing new started dying today. Many don't look great but I hope to be happy when I get home next week. Thanks for the tips.

I have stopped everything but feeding. Hopefully things balance out while I'm gone.

 

[Myka]

Well the tank has cleared up. Nitrates are sitting around 30ish. Alk was stable over 24 hours but is high but I'm happy it didn't go up more. I have a slight p04 in the system now which is great. Rtn has appeared to stop in a coral or two and nothing new started dying today. Many don't look great but I hope to be happy when I get home next week. Thanks for the tips.

I have stopped everything but feeding. Hopefully things balance out while I'm gone.

I wouldn't suggest suddenly stopping vinegar dosing.

KH went up because of denitrification.