New 73 gallon tank setup

[tang daddy]

Originally Posted by Frogger

Changing water about 10 gallons every second week on a 80 gallon system. This was more an effort to reduce phosphates that had gotten really high. Using only RO DI water newer filters. I was only lightly feeding and have a low fish bio load (5 fish). I was using a lot of GFO to help reduce phosphates. I have never registered Nitrates. It was Gregzz4 that told me the 0 nitrates is the problem.

Almost the same issue with me, no no3 and sometimes lots of po4. The colours on my sps are awesome tho so can't complain but the po4 won't go down without no3 they drag each other down....

[Frogger]

Originally Posted by tang daddy

Almost the same issue with me, no no3 and sometimes lots of po4. The colours on my sps are awesome tho so can't complain but the po4 won't go down without no3 they drag each other down....

How's your bioload, how about your feeding? You must be adding enough nitrates in your food that keeps the corals fed and healthy but not enough to stabilize your Phosphates.

Your system is likely using up any nitrates that you add.

[tang daddy]

Originally Posted by Frogger

How's your bioload, how about your feeding? You must be adding enough nitrates in your food that keeps the corals fed and healthy but not enough to stabilize your Phosphates.

Your system is likely using up any nitrates that you add.

I have about 25 fish and feed 3-5x per day dirty food like pei mysis plus coral food so definately a lot of feeding.

[Frogger]

Originally Posted by tang daddy

I have about 25 fish and feed 3-5x per day dirty food like pei mysis plus coral food so definately a lot of feeding.

The heavy feeding is why you have enough nitrates to keep the colours in your corals but not enough to control your phosphates.

I have always been a light feeder of my fish, as there is enough going on in the tank to keep them healthy. My only concern with adding a lot of food is I would be adding more phosphate and would not achieve that balance. That is why I am now adding the KNO3 and amino acids (which are all nitrates) and not adding phosphates.

Still no nitrates measurable in my system. I will go to 10mls 3 times a day plus daily amino acid additions.

[tang daddy]

Originally Posted by Frogger

The heavy feeding is why you have enough nitrates to keep the colours in your corals but not enough to control your phosphates.

I have always been a light feeder of my fish, as there is enough going on in the tank to keep them healthy. My only concern with adding a lot of food is I would be adding more phosphate and would not achieve that balance. That is why I am now adding the KNO3 and amino acids (which are all nitrates) and not adding phosphates.

Still no nitrates measurable in my system. I will go to 10mls 3 times a day plus daily amino acid additions.

True to the above, that is why I do 5g wc every 3 days. I keep anthias and they like to eat, plus some of the other fish need to be fattened up. Once they are overweight I'll back off on the feeding. I am not that concerned with po4 as it is easily controlled via rowaphos. If I can increase the nitrates it should drop to po4 further. I stated in my journal I noticed my sps with the best growth when po4 was hovering in the .04-.10 range any higher and the growth slows down drastically.

[Frogger]

After 4 days of dosing KNO3 I finally have a readable nitrate level in the tank. .25ppm . I have been adding 35mls of the KNO3 solution daily (that is the equivalent of almost .8ppm of nitrate for my tank volume daily). I may be imaging things but a few of the corals appear to have a little more colour. Too early to be certain. I will continue to add the same amount of KNO3.

My calcium level has dropped 50ppm since Saturday. I have even been adding a bit more calcium in the past week because I felt 410 might be a little low. My only guess is nitrate was the limiting factor in the growth of corals and coralline algae. Once nitrates are available these processes have kicked in using more of the calcium. I will double my dose of calcium to try to get it back on track.

I had heard that dosing KNO3 raises alkalinity so I have reduced my buffer addition in half over the past 4 days and I am stable at 9dkh

[iamfrontosa]

I think you are on the right track.