Nitrates

AslanTheKing

New member
All of my parameters are wonderful, save one.

I have dkh at 9.8
I have NH$ at 0
I have No2 at 0
I have NO3 between 2 and 5.

No green algae blooms. The macro on my rocks is showing some growth.

My cleanup crew is good.

I found what appeared to be a candy cane skeleton when I loaded the live rock in over 3 weeks ago. A couple of days ago, I noticed something flourescing in the sand. Once I started adding DT's, apparantly this thing got resurrected. It's not absolutely thriving, but it is well on the mend.

I've changed a minimum of 10 gallons a week. This week I did one 7 gallon cahnge on Wed. I'll do another tomorrow.

I have a medium brown algae bloom now.

How do I polish off the nitrates to nothing. Is 0 an absolute number for nitrates. Life is growing min my tank.

Thoughts?

Ideas?


Buehler?


Peace

Kevin
 
how old is it? if its not old, then its just a phase most likely. I've found that if you've got good flow (no dead spots) then nitrates in that range wont cause algae to grow. However, if you dont have good flow and theres some dead spots, that level could cause nitrates, at which point the amount of flow and light could actually help the stuff out.

But imo, 2-5 nitrates isnt really going to do anything. Heck, all my corals, fish, inverts lived thru a spike of over 100 while i was on vacation. None even showed stress lol.

Do you have any chaeto or anything in a sump/fuge? that will help take away some nitrates, and should make the other algae stop growing as well (maybe).

But one other thing...what about your phosphates? algae feeds off that too, so you gotta find out what those are at.
 
I agree with dude. You are not in any danger. 5 ppm is not really much at all. Your brown algae is most likely a new tank thing. If you kepp up with your maint. It will die out eventually. looks to me like you have some good gear. Are you giving any though to ca at the moment?? How about your PH??
 
Sirdude

Tank is under a month old. Nothing other than cleanup crew is stocked. The Tunze has the tank mostly covered, but I do intend to add another small powerhead to get more flow. Directly under the Tunze at the bottom of the tank appears to be very low to no flow.

Calcium finally came in at >380 this test.

Anyhow, I saw everyone talking about getting NO3 down to 0 before adding any fish or corals and I got a little concerned.

Peace

Kevin

As for chaeto and a fuge. I am working on getting an hob fuge.

I am still waiting on my RK 2 to get an accurate Ph.
 
ryanqk

i was the same way lol. My nitrates were at like 7 or so...i know i overfeed so thats prolly why, but anyways i figured i'd just live w/it, but i tested one day out of the blue and it was 0 lol.
 
my nitrates were at 30 for the last 3 weeks, went to LFS he told me exactly what to feed, 2 days later and a water change....guess who's got 0 nitrates?? exactly..probably overfeeding
 
Feeding:

Currently, I have only snails and hermits. I have been feeding the tank DT's (2tbs every other day) to keep the pods and baby dusters happy.

Is that overfeeding?

Peace

Kevin
 
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