Nitrate Level in Zoa Tanks

[strout]

I may be making a mistake, don't know, but I have turned off my skimmer and will leave it off for about three days a week to see if that will help with zoa growth. I am sure my nitrates will start to climb, I wlll be using a filter sock though, that will get changed out every day.

 

[chucktd321]

ive noticed the best growth when a i skip water changes lol. No joke, though it seems they loved it. When you think about nitrates is fish poop and excess food that your corals eat. Some people have nitrates 50+ppm which is a little scary lol. But they have awesome growth usually. I myself have mainly zoas with some sps but mine keep around 5-10ppm

 

[scuba guy ron]

I have had nitrates at 10-20ppm for 2 years now and have had no issues. My zoas and palys are growing well. CrazY thing is I have a beautiful sps of tyree sunset monti that I've heard only colors up with pristine water. When I got it a year ago it was a 1in frag. It has since grown to 6in and is super colored orange and green. I always had heard nitrates were bad and I think they are if they Àre in excess. Imo below 30ppm is fine for me.

 

[Timanator]

Mine stays at 0 -5.

 

[blasterman789]

Do you run a skimmer on your tank?

No. Not by choice, but simply because I haven't found one worth a darn that works on a small tank HOB style and doesn't put another ugly power head in my tank. Side rant, but I don't get this, and about ready to design and build my own.

Anyways, I recently started carbon dosing because I've had just a bit of hair algae issues in the past, and wanted to nip it before it got worse. Mind you, my nitrates and phosphates test ziltch.

The carbon dosing put a hault to any small patches of algae after about 10 days, but it also slowed down zoo growth. So again, there's a clear relationship between excess nitrate and zoo growth.

I always had heard nitrates were bad and I think they are if they Àre in excess.

Acros - yes. IMHO, montis thrive in reasonable nitrate levels.

 

[ncny21802]

I;ve had a few large setups in the past. This go around I got a 46 gallon bow about 3 months ago. It is SPS dominated with LPS and zoas. I have a variety of Zoas..Spidermans, AOG, Deepwaters, whamming watermelon, lunar eclipse, etc, etc. My nitrates run about 30. I change 10% a week and run a big skimmer for my size tank. I also run Purigen, GFO, and ROX carbon 24/7. The reason teh nitrates are high is due to a heavy bioload of fish and heavy feeding. I've always ran my tanks this way and always had great success. Zoas/palys grow like weeds and SPS grow very fast. Not what everybody is preaching but in the 15 years I've been keeping reef tanks I never had a problem keeping my nitrates in the 20-40 range. Here is my tank now. I set this one up 3 months ago with all dry rock

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[jayporksandwich]

I also experienced the tsame

 

[gprdypoo04]

I have had nitrates at 10-20ppm for 2 years now and have had no issues. My zoas and palys are growing well. CrazY thing is I have a beautiful sps of tyree sunset monti that I've heard only colors up with pristine water. When I got it a year ago it was a 1in frag. It has since grown to 6in and is super colored orange and green. I always had heard nitrates were bad and I think they are if they Àre in excess. Imo below 30ppm is fine for me.

30 to 40 ppm is fine for me, 4 years now.

 

[rogersb]

I ran a reef tank for 8 years, took a break and am now back in. I've had corals for around a month and have been mainly testing for alk, ca, and mag but since I was testing those tonight I tested nitrates. I got 0 nitrates but have a small amount of algae so must be as I get nitrates the algae is consuming it. I've got around 15 different zoa frags and many have put on babies. Color is great as well. I only have 4 small fish in my 125 but I feed them frozen 3-4 times a day so I'm keeping the tank as nutrient rich as I can with the small fish load I have.

 

[Vlad 1.026]

For those of you growing zoa colony's in your tanks, what are your Nitrate levels running?

They look more vivid