Good Nitrate to Phosphate ratio for a reef tank?

[Mr Mumblez]

It’s possible that it is red branching corollone? Mabye. It’s not aggressively growing. Slow growth. Only where lights hit, so non under overhangs. No cyano in this tank. Went thru all those phases already. I use rodi water and coral pro salt

 

[Mr Mumblez]

I added that pink fusion Coraline in a bottle months ago do you think that that is what this is I’ll try to take better pictures with the lights on

 

[Dennis Cartier]

When I first saw the photo, it reminded me of the burgundy coraline I had in the past, but then it would be smooth, and yours looks like tufts.

There are branching coralines, I bought some snails that had a bunch on their shells, they looked like they had deer antlers. Unfortunately I have been unable to get that particular algae to spread to my rock. Now if it were some plague algae ... then it would be everywhere, lol.

 

[Mr Mumblez]

My parameters are steady since I started adding alk to top off and changing water every 3 weeks. 20%. It’s not ugly to look at but it’s not purple or pink either lol.

 

[Mr Mumblez]

Best pics I can take with phone.

 

[Mr Mumblez]

It won’t run off and when I took a price of rock out of tank it dried up hard red after a day or so.

 

[xabo]

Does it look like this?

 

[MnFish1]

I added that pink fusion Coraline in a bottle months ago do you think that that is what this is I’ll try to take better pictures with the lights on

Yes

 

[Dennis Cartier]

I am thinking this is coraline from the bottled starter you added along with some other film algae that is giving it a fringed look. If you zoom in you can see a translucent whitish film I can't remember the name of the whitish film, it is a common one. Update: I think it might be chrytophyte.

If that is coraline, it speaks pretty well of seeding with the bottled starter.

Dennis

 

[RobB'z Reef]

great information and discussion! So my system is running fallow right now and recent measurements for PO4 are .01 (hanna, maybe its zero?) and undetectable NO3 (red sea). I'm starting to feed reef roids and am slowly upping the regimen. I heard that will help with PO4 perhaps? What should I be dosing if anything to help bring my NO3 up?

 

[MnFish1]

I am thinking this is coraline from the bottled starter you added along with some other film algae that is giving it a fringed look. If you zoom in you can see a translucent whitish film I can't remember the name of the whitish film, it is a common one. Update: I think it might be chrytophyte.

If that is coraline, it speaks pretty well of seeding with the bottled starter.

Dennis

that bottled starter actually works really well IME

 

[MnFish1]

I am thinking this is coraline from the bottled starter you added along with some other film algae that is giving it a fringed look. If you zoom in you can see a translucent whitish film I can't remember the name of the whitish film, it is a common one. Update: I think it might be chrytophyte.

If that is coraline, it speaks pretty well of seeding with the bottled starter.

Dennis

Why are you doing anything? Do you have coral? etc?

 

[Mr Mumblez]

I’m using Hanna checkers for alk, ultra low phosphorous, calcium. I use salifert for all other tests. I’m eventually going to Hanna checkers for all. I’ve been diligent in my testing and keeping parameters where the bottled coralline said to. Dosing phyto magic per instr. these freckles started showing up on the rock couple months after I added it. Kinda slow growing. The fuzzy look it has has me stumped, turf would get hairy right? And grow fast? This stuff seems to grow in tufts, like a paint brush for letters. Short though
I only have few corals. I’m new so taking it slow. GSP, pulsing Xenia, Florida ricordea, some zoas, toadstool, some Mexican turbos, kole tang, pair clowns, skunk shrimp, royale gramma, fairy wrasse, dragon goby,

 

[Mr Mumblez]

Does it look like this?

Looks just like this but Mabye not as much coverage. Still more freckles. What is that you have there?

 

[xabo]

Looks just like this but Mabye not as much coverage. Still more freckles. What is that you have there?

Wish I knew............appears to be some type of turf algae, but when out of the water it has a "rubbery' feel to it.

 

[Mr Mumblez]

Wish I knew............appears to be some type of turf algae, but when out of the water it has a "rubbery' feel to it.

I don’t have enough to tell if it’s rubbery. It’s not thick enough. Still feels like rock but looks like what you have. Haven’t seen anything as close

 

[Rmckoy]

Following to read through . Ive been battling the nutrients out of balance

 

[josh.workman]

As an experiment try running a reef with NO3 & PO4 at zero during the first year. You’ll never do it again after you see witness the issues it causes.

Then raise your PO4 to say 0.05 and your NO3 to about 10. You’ll quickly understand exactly what I’m talking about.

Yeah, I’m dealing with that now ‍ Now my struggle is keeping those levels there daily dosing both NO3 and PO4

 

[Retroreef]

Hello!

Over the years this has been one of my favorite subjects. A while back I noticed my tanks doing a lot better with more NO3 than PO4.

When the NO3 matched the PO4 on the lower side the tank begin to grow hair algae in the sump, and dark brown algae on the rocks, overflow box, sand-bed and glass.

First let’s look at those low numbers. PO4 was down to 0.02-0.03ppm and NO3 was 1ppm.

As I bumped the the NO3 up to 3ppm...the algae begin to decrease. It continued to decrease even more as I slowly bumped it to 6ppm. Right now I’m holding it at 10ppm and the tank looks great.

I also increased the PO4 to 0.07ppm. This really got me thinking about the Red Field Ratio. Off the top of my head I think I heard you’re supposed to have 16 NO3 per 1 PO4.? Not sure how accurate that is, but would love to hear some thoughts on this subject as it may help us all.

Happy Reefing!

Imo nitrate is a key contributor to coral coloration and the ability to run high par. In my tenuis tank I run over 600 par full coverage and find when nitrate is under 10 I have issues with color. Currently sitting around 20 and Po4 stays around .05.

 

[Reefahholic]

Imo nitrate is a key contributor to coral coloration and the ability to run high par. In my tenuis tank I run over 600 par full coverage and find when nitrate is under 10 I have issues with color. Currently sitting around 20 and Po4 stays around .05.

No doubt you can push them with a lot more light if the corals have more nutrients available. Otherwise they will outgrow their own resources. It's kind of like making a guy run a marathon with very little water. He may do well at first, but eventually he'll start to have issues.