bfortune76
New member
I am stuck in a situation that I am not sure what I should do. My reef is currently doing well most SPS have good PE with great color. There are a few problem children that are a bit green/brown but I think its due to them being located in spot that's under my center brace and has lower light. Most SPS are getting 250-300 PAR of quality LED light and lots of flow. My clam has 1/4" white growth lines, LPS are fat, and coraline is going gangbusters. So in other words nothing is really wrong.
Salinity is 1.026
Calcium is 410-420
Alkalinity is 8.4
Magnesium is 1400
Nitrate is >1
Phosphate is .075-.1
My concern is with my Nitrate. It seems my export methods are very efficient at nitrate removal but not so much at phosphate. I feed well and measure feeding so I always put the same amount in. I am running an algae scrubber, skimmer, filter socks, have a lot of live rock, and do weekly 10% water changes. A few months back I was not paying close enough attention and my N and P crept up to 20 and .4. This had a huge affect on corals and I lost my PC rainbow. My remedy was to crank up my algae scrubber which has worked very well for the most part but Its running 24/7 at full intensity right now holding things pretty stable at >1 and .1.
So the problem I have is that if I feed more, Nitrate goes up very slightly but phosphate starts getting too high. Likewise if I turn down my scrubber I get the same affect high phosphates with acceptable Nitrates. I am reluctant to use GFO with phosphate only being at .075-.1 but am also reluctant to start dosing Nitrate. I really dont want to dose Something else on top of all the other stuff I am dosing.
It makes me question the validity of nitrate test kits (I have used both red sea and saifert) I know that my system has Nitrate because I will get tufts of algae in the display before my CUC can get to it and my scrubber is working "very" well. It makes me wonder if i should ignore the nitrate readings and be happy with slightly elevated phosphate and barely detectable nitrates or if I should be proactive and start trying something else. By biggest fear is that Nitrates will bottom out and I will get a cyano or dino bloom.
Salinity is 1.026
Calcium is 410-420
Alkalinity is 8.4
Magnesium is 1400
Nitrate is >1
Phosphate is .075-.1
My concern is with my Nitrate. It seems my export methods are very efficient at nitrate removal but not so much at phosphate. I feed well and measure feeding so I always put the same amount in. I am running an algae scrubber, skimmer, filter socks, have a lot of live rock, and do weekly 10% water changes. A few months back I was not paying close enough attention and my N and P crept up to 20 and .4. This had a huge affect on corals and I lost my PC rainbow. My remedy was to crank up my algae scrubber which has worked very well for the most part but Its running 24/7 at full intensity right now holding things pretty stable at >1 and .1.
So the problem I have is that if I feed more, Nitrate goes up very slightly but phosphate starts getting too high. Likewise if I turn down my scrubber I get the same affect high phosphates with acceptable Nitrates. I am reluctant to use GFO with phosphate only being at .075-.1 but am also reluctant to start dosing Nitrate. I really dont want to dose Something else on top of all the other stuff I am dosing.
It makes me question the validity of nitrate test kits (I have used both red sea and saifert) I know that my system has Nitrate because I will get tufts of algae in the display before my CUC can get to it and my scrubber is working "very" well. It makes me wonder if i should ignore the nitrate readings and be happy with slightly elevated phosphate and barely detectable nitrates or if I should be proactive and start trying something else. By biggest fear is that Nitrates will bottom out and I will get a cyano or dino bloom.
