Nitrate Disappearing.....
- Thread starter jeo1997
- Start date
E Rosewater
New member
My guess on the disappearing nitrate was that you were getting a false reading due to the nitrite in the tank, now the nitrite is gone you're getting an accurate reading of nitrate.
noobofthereef
New member
You should first do water changes until you get the nitrates down to 0. Then if I were you I would first just put in CUC without fish in case something random happens in your tank. My preferred CUC are nerites, ceriths, and dwarf ceriths. I don't really like hermit crabs because they sometimes kill the snails, but a couple would be good.
noobofthereef
New member
Actually most people would want to have their nitrates at 0. I'm pretty sure they don't need nitrates but some nitrates are still ok. Yes, too much is lethal.
Lynxone
New member
It depends on what corals you plan on keeping. Many people who keep sps heavy tanks run very low nitrate levels as the sps corals don't tend to tolerate high levels. Lps, softies and fish only systems are more tolerant of nitrates.
My system is all lps with some soft corals. A mix of euphylias, zooanthids, mushrooms and leather corals and they don't mind the nitrates in the 10-15 levels which is how I've run it for years. Frogspawn grows like a weed in my tank. However, the guys growing all the high end sps would probably gasp at those levels. Most seem to try and keep their tanks below 5. Those tanks are beautiful but I like to feed my fat fishes too much to try and keep my system that clean.
So, to answer your question..... Yes 10 is ok depending on what you plan to grow. The more livestock you have, the harder it is to keep those numbers down.
noobofthereef
New member
Yep. If my nitrates go above a 5 then my sps will start to do not so well. So I keep it around the 5 range. My fish are happy, lps and softies will do fine. And my sps do ok.
houstonhobby
New member
Some corals with zoanthids actually want just a little bit of nitrate. It is a plant fertilizer and they take it in and pass it on to their symbionts. So zero is not necessarily the best answer.
However, be aware that ammonia is continually produced in any tank. Just because it measures zero doesn't mean it isn't there. This is absolutely true if that tank has any inhabitants. It just means it is being picked up out of the water so quickly by bacteria and algae that there isn't enough free in the water to register on your test. So the zoathids are probably well fertilized even at 0-0-0 if the tank has a reasonable number of inhabitants.
However, be aware that ammonia is continually produced in any tank. Just because it measures zero doesn't mean it isn't there. This is absolutely true if that tank has any inhabitants. It just means it is being picked up out of the water so quickly by bacteria and algae that there isn't enough free in the water to register on your test. So the zoathids are probably well fertilized even at 0-0-0 if the tank has a reasonable number of inhabitants.
houstonhobby
New member
I also read recently that tanks can cycle in as little as 3 days and as long as 6 weeks, depending upon the temperature, the population size of bacteria initially present in the materials, the amount of nutrients available for the bacteria to grow, and the number and quality of homesites available.
This last is especially important for the final phase, denitrification, which must occur in anaerobic conditions.
This last is especially important for the final phase, denitrification, which must occur in anaerobic conditions.
