NO3 and PO4 not rising & Kh and pH constantly dropping

[gluca88]

Hi all,
I have a problem that is puzzling me. Since i have some dino in my tank i wanted to raise the nitrate content in order to have green algae to compete, or at least thats what i got from the thread where it is explained how to get rid of the dino.

Fact is that i could ever read any nitrate or phosphate in my tank from the tests.

Im trying to keep my aquarium from doing water changes (my RODI is rather slow and it would be an hassle to collect enough water for a 20% water change). I always managed to keep the dino at a low level so the tank wouldnt look horrible; fish and invertebrates are ok, corals are growing.

My tank is 300L and 3 months old. The test kit im using is "Colombo marine" (the same one my LFS is using) and these are the results:

NH3NO2NO3PO4Mg Ca KH pH

0 0 0 0.0315307006.2 7.8


The decrease in Kh is about 0.2/week and so is the pH. Before i tried to keep it constant at 7 with NaCO3 from redsea. Now is couple of weeks that i try not to add it to see if it would stabilize at some point. Ca and Mg are too high and i dont know how this happened, im using RODI and im pretty sure it doesnt come from there since the levels are constant over time, maybe a pH effect?

I also removed the caluerpa and carbon some time ago without any effect. How can you explain this behaviour? And how do i rise the nitrate content?

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[hegeh]

I would recommend small/frequent waterchange or about 15% wc weekly. It is normal for PH to fluctuate. Kh is consumed too at reasonable rate too. Nothing to worry here imo.

So why do you want to raise no3? Dino is normal for new tank. It will go away. Youre tank is currently going the "ugly phase".

I personally dose micobe lift special blend and pro bio S just to add more bacteria. Just to overkill adding more bacteria strain [emoji38]

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[bertoni]

You could consider dosing sodium or potassium nitrate, but the bloom might go away on its own. If the calcium level is high, that's probably from the salt mix. Same for magnesium. I'd try testing some freshly mixed saltwater. pH at 7.8 is fine for a tank in a house with the windows closed.

A drop of 0.2 dKH per week is very small. My tanks went through 2-3 dKH per day due to coralline growth.