Low nutrient / high nutrient.. what your reading

[125mph]

I keep my nitrates undetectable and phosphates are appear 0 to .25 from my api test kit.. not sure how reliable that thing is.. For those running higher nutrient levels, what is your nitrates and phosphates at? Or do you just keep everything close to 0 but feed the system a lot?

 

[ryansreef_26]

My nitrates are 0, and phosphates are 0.05, the closer the phosphates are to 0, the more feeding i tend to to because 0 phosphate is too low esp. in a reef aquarium. Also if you have low nutrients then you should have low light because of the amount of zoox alge, if your nutrients are higher then you should have a higher amount of light because of the zoox alge. just watch how your corals react to the amount of nutrients and lighting you will be able to see by color/growth

 

[a.browning]

I feed a lot, and try to maintain both values at zero. Nitrate always tests at zero on Salifert, phosphate ranges from 0ppb-10ppb on a Hanna ULR checker. I feed at least a cube a day of frozen food, along with NLS pellets. I dose amino acids every day. I also feed oyster feast, cyclops, and rotifers each once a week to the sps. Works really well for me, but each system is different. The key is balancing nutrient import with nutrient export, which I do through heavy skimming, gfo, carbon and a refugium. It works excellent for my system.