After 2 weeks of adding KNO3, now adding 60mls/day, which equates to adding 2ppm per day of nitrate for my 73 gallon tank.
I am now at 1.5ppm NO3 and phosphorus is 0 using Hanna ULR meter. I was using about a half a cup of GFO. I have now turned off the GFO because I do not want my phosphorus at 0.
I was needing to run at least 3 cups of GFO to keep my phosphorus below .03ppm before I started adding KNO3. If I didn't my phosphorus would hit .3ppm very quickly.
My tank appears to be using close to 2ppm nitrates to maintain a nominal nitrate level in the tank. I like my current level of nitrates however it appears the higher I go the lower the phosphates get. I think this is going to be a bit of a balance game, lets see what happen now that I turned the GFO reactor off.
What I have noticed in my tank with the higher nitrates is better growth and color of the corals, not quite as good as I want but my coralline algae is growing like nuts, hence the larger draw of Calcium.
I caution anyone thinking that they can control their phosphates by adding nitrates. My situation was a particular situation where I have a low bio load, feed lightly, strong skimming and had absolutely no nitrates in the system.
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