No sps growing. Nitrates?

[madmike10000]

75 gallon tank
75-90lb rock
2" sand bed
30 gallon sump
Bubble magnus curve 5 skimmer
2 rw15 on wave 1
2 300watt black box leds
Gfo reactor running 24/7
Carbon rox 0.8 reactor 24/7
Ph8.2.
Alk 9
35ppt
79°f
P04- 0
Nitrate 20-25
Calcium 45
Mag 1300
3 fish. 1 bird wrasse and a pair of clownfish fed once a day mysis and pellets

So my tank had been up for about a year and all my sps barely grow. Nothing really dies but it dosent grow or color up exept my green milipora Which is doing good. The alk is finally stable at 9 with 2 part but my nitrates are at around 25 and p04 always reads 0. I tried water changes but nothing really brings it down for good. It always climbs back up. I used rodi water and salinity salt mix so i know i dont have any entering the tank and i only have 3 fish that i feed once a day. Where should i start?




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[nmotz]

I think you may have had a typo, did you mean your calcium is 450?

Are your corals brown? Nitrates could be the issue. Does your sump collect a lot of detritus? Do you have a filter sock or other means of mechanical filtration? All those can become nitrate machines. The only other potential problem area might be your sand bed. At 2" it might be collecting some nasty stuff that is leaching nitrates.

I'd give it and maybe your sump a good cleaning and see what happens. Your other parameters look fine as long as they are stable. If they waver too much, corals won't grow. I know from experience! :thumbsup:

 

[madmike10000]

I think you may have had a typo, did you mean your calcium is 450?

Are your corals brown? Nitrates could be the issue. Does your sump collect a lot of detritus? Do you have a filter sock or other means of mechanical filtration? All those can become nitrate machines. The only other potential problem area might be your sand bed. At 2" it might be collecting some nasty stuff that is leaching nitrates.

I'd give it and maybe your sump a good cleaning and see what happens. Your other parameters look fine as long as they are stable. If they waver too much, corals won't grow. I know from experience! [emoji106]

Oh yes thats a typo. My calcium is 420. Idk why i put 45. I dont run any filter socks. I have 2 powerheads in my sump. The idea is to have stuff not settle there like it used to and i never vacuumed my sand bed. I was told not to touch it. Now that i typed that out it seems maybe thats why i have nitrates?

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[madmike10000]

I think you may have had a typo, did you mean your calcium is 450?

Are your corals brown? Nitrates could be the issue. Does your sump collect a lot of detritus? Do you have a filter sock or other means of mechanical filtration? All those can become nitrate machines. The only other potential problem area might be your sand bed. At 2" it might be collecting some nasty stuff that is leaching nitrates.

I'd give it and maybe your sump a good cleaning and see what happens. Your other parameters look fine as long as they are stable. If they waver too much, corals won't grow. I know from experience! [emoji106]

And yea they are brown. Some have color like my setosa and mili but all the acros are brown

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[nmotz]

And yea they are brown. Some have color like my setosa and mili but all the acros are brown

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I think the sand bed is probably your nutrient factory. Corals are browning out because of the excess nitrates. Try to siphon some of the crud out of the sand bed and see what happens. I wouldn't expect there to be immediate results, but do it a few times and I think you'll see a difference.

 

[jeweet123]

Your po4 is the problem you need po4 to lower nitrate


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[reefmutt]

I suspect the combination of 0 p and high n is the problem.
As an experiment why don't you take your gfo reactor offline for a bit and see where p and n go.
In order for your sand bed to properly denitrify, the bacteria require some po4 to function and thrive.
You may achieve a better balance of nitrate to phosphate simply by removing or dramatically reducing your gfo usage.
What test kit do you use for testing po4?

 

[madmike10000]

I suspect the combination of 0 p and high n is the problem.
As an experiment why don't you take your gfo reactor offline for a bit and see where p and n go.
In order for your sand bed to properly denitrify, the bacteria require some po4 to function and thrive.
You may achieve a better balance of nitrate to phosphate simply by removing or dramatically reducing your gfo usage.
What test kit do you use for testing po4?

Salifert. Brand new one yesterday.

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[reefmutt]

I've never used the po4 test kit from salifert..
If your p is truly zero, I really think this is the root of your issue.
Nutrient reducing bacteria need some p, n, carbon and iron to function properly. Without one of these things, they will stop.
O p and high n is a pretty classic indicator of a phosphate limited system.

 

[madmike10000]

I've never used the po4 test kit from salifert..
If your p is truly zero, I really think this is the root of your issue.
Nutrient reducing bacteria need some p, n, carbon and iron to function properly. Without one of these things, they will stop.
O p and high n is a pretty classic indicator of a phosphate limited system.

It has shown zero for a while now and i was so convinced it was my test kit till i bought another one and still zero. Ill take the gfo offline and see what happens. I only started gfo 3 weeks ago. But i have had 0 p04 for months. I only realized my nitrate was high when i got my first nitrate test kit 2 weeks ago

I've never used the po4 test kit from salifert..
If your p is truly zero, I really think this is the root of your issue.
Nutrient reducing bacteria need some p, n, carbon and iron to function properly. Without one of these things, they will stop.
O p and high n is a pretty classic indicator of a phosphate limited system.

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[madmike10000]

I've never used the po4 test kit from salifert..
If your p is truly zero, I really think this is the root of your issue.
Nutrient reducing bacteria need some p, n, carbon and iron to function properly. Without one of these things, they will stop.
O p and high n is a pretty classic indicator of a phosphate limited system.

I have to scrap the glass twice a week so i figured i had p04 in there somewhere

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[reefmutt]

I wish I only had to clean my glass twice a week!
That should change when gfo goes offline.
I suspect that when you actually have to clean more often , you'll also see n come down a bit.
I have heard that the salifert test for po4 is not very precise at very low levels. If you can get your hands on an Elos High Resolution Po4 test kit, you'd do yourself a favor.

 

[madmike10000]

So if i remove my gfo how will my nitrate go down

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[Potatohead]

So if i remove my gfo how will my nitrate go down

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You need phosphate in the water in order to lower nitrate. The ideal ratio of them is 16:1 but not many people pay much attention to that, they just try to have a detectable amount of both. If you let you po4 raise up to say .05 or something similar your nitrate will start to come down, but it will take a couple months for the bacteria to colonize and start denitrifying.

 

[reefmutt]

So if i remove my gfo how will my nitrate go down

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This is an amazingly informative, if somewhat long winded thread. But it explains everything..
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2210947

In a nutshell nutrient reducing bacteria need a food source, and building blocks in order to grow, reproduce, thrive and thus absorb nutrients.
The main things they need are iron, nitrates, phosphates, and a carbon source (like foods added to the tank or vodka, sugar, vinegar or biopellets) in order to be happy. If you remove just one of these things, the bacteria stop thriving and will not reduce nutrients any further than they already have.
Usually, they consume more nitrate than phosphate and you often end up with nitrates zeroing out before phosphates.
In your case it seems to be the opposite which is less common but not unheard of.
When all the nutrients are available, the bacteria happily go about their life cycle and reduce your nutrients but once they run out of something, they stop reproducing. The only way to get them started again is to provide them with what they are missing.
In your case (if indeed this is what is happening in your system) the bacteria have run out of po4 and therefore can no longer consume n.
Once you provide them with a bit of extra p (which is occurring naturally in your system, but is being pulled out by the gfo and algea) the bacteria should kick in again and begin reducing n.
So, I think that in your case, if you stop the gfo, more po4 will be available to the bacteria which will, in turn, start consuming nitrates, along with the newly available po4.
By testing regularly, you should be able to get a slight measurement for p and watch n come down.
There's no telling if stopping the gfo will actually provide enough p for the bacteria since you say your p was already low before you began gfo, but I think it's your first step..
If nothing changes after a couple weeks of no gfo, (i.e: still 0 p and high n) then you may consider adding more food or a phosphate additive... but cross that bridge when you get to it..
There are other things in your system competing for these nutrients like the algea growing on your glass and rocks, or maybe sponge growth or other growing animals including your corals. So the trick is to provide some nutrients to keep the organisms you want to have happy but no too much nutrients that you make the organisms you don't want happy..
It's a tricky balance..

 

[madmike10000]

This is an amazingly informative, if somewhat long winded thread. But it explains everything..
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2210947

In a nutshell nutrient reducing bacteria need a food source, and building blocks in order to grow, reproduce, thrive and thus absorb nutrients.
The main things they need are iron, nitrates, phosphates, and a carbon source (like foods added to the tank or vodka, sugar, vinegar or biopellets) in order to be happy. If you remove just one of these things, the bacteria stop thriving and will not reduce nutrients any further than they already have.
Usually, they consume more nitrate than phosphate and you often end up with nitrates zeroing out before phosphates.
In your case it seems to be the opposite which is less common but not unheard of.
When all the nutrients are available, the bacteria happily go about their life cycle and reduce your nutrients but once they run out of something, they stop reproducing. The only way to get them started again is to provide them with what they are missing.
In your case (if indeed this is what is happening in your system) the bacteria have run out of po4 and therefore can no longer consume n.
Once you provide them with a bit of extra p (which is occurring naturally in your system, but is being pulled out by the gfo and algea) the bacteria should kick in again and begin reducing n.
So, I think that in your case, if you stop the gfo, more po4 will be available to the bacteria which will, in turn, start consuming nitrates, along with the newly available po4.
By testing regularly, you should be able to get a slight measurement for p and watch n come down.
There's no telling if stopping the gfo will actually provide enough p for the bacteria since you say your p was already low before you began gfo, but I think it's your first step..
If nothing changes after a couple weeks of no gfo, (i.e: still 0 p and high n) then you may consider adding more food or a phosphate additive... but cross that bridge when you get to it..
There are other things in your system competing for these nutrients like the algea growing on your glass and rocks, or maybe sponge growth or other growing animals including your corals. So the trick is to provide some nutrients to keep the organisms you want to have happy but no too much nutrients that you make the organisms you don't want happy..
It's a tricky balance..

It makes sense i suppose. I have never seen even a little color on my p test. Ill just shut down gfo and feed a little more.

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[reefmutt]

To be conservative, why not just start by stopping gfo and keep food the same.
You really don't want to shift the system too quickly. You want to give the system- the biology in your system- time to adjust.

 

[madmike10000]

To be conservative, why not just start by stopping gfo and keep food the same.
You really don't want to shift the system too quickly. You want to give the system- the biology in your system- time to adjust.

Ok thats true. Do u think my nitrates is why my corals are brown and dont grow

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