What nutrient is giving you the most trouble

[Gumbies R Us]

Sometimes, our tank is coasting along nicely, and BAM, we are hit by out-of-whack nutrients. Maybe it is high nitrates or low phosphates. I am wondering what nutrient has/ or is currently giving you the most trouble in your tank, and what are you doing to combat it? Photo Credit: @Robinson

 

[shakacuz]

personally for my tank it was po4. no3 was usually always detectable, but low. po4 was always 0.00 lol

 

[apb03]

I wouldn't say it's giving me trouble, but I can't get my nitrate below 40ppm, despite doing 20% water changes weekly. My corals look great but I always have in the back of my mind what would they look like and what would my growth be if I was at 5ppm? For better or worse, I would like to compare.

I think eventually I'll try vodka.

 

[aztoza]

Phosphate! Only got a reading once despite being an overfeeder. There is plenty of algae and coral growth so I doubt it’s a completely accurate reflection.

 

[scotty333]

Was po4 until I weighed out my food , now it only drops a bit if my caluerpa gets out of control
Aimed at .06 which gives wiggle room

 

[dakoop]

Nitrate. Nopox is bringing it down but still to high

 

[Koty]

It’s PO4 in my case. Or is it me chasing it for no substantiated reason? My tank is doing great except for the hair algae that is doing too “great” . Also unclear wether algae is due to high phosphate (0.2-0.6 ppm) or is it me dosing too much amino acids to feed corals.

 

[Dburr1014]

I'm always no3 0.
My po4 spiked to 0.4 a couple months ago but now steadily down to 0.11 as of yesterday.

I also saw what looked* like dinos in the front right corner of my tank(shutter). It didn't go away last night so maybe it's something else. I'm going to have a look when I get home today.
Maybe I'll dose some ammonia? Maybe not. Leaving Sunday for a week out of town so I don't want to upset anything.

 

[scotty333]

Nitrate. Nopox is bringing it down but still to high

Vodka will surprise you , did me

 

[dakoop]

Vodka will surprise you , did me

Drinking it or dosing it?

 

[skey44]

Newer tank here. Struggling to keep any detectable nitrates. The phosphate will increase with heavy feedings and without GFO change.

 

[Reefer Matt]

Nitrate high, phosphate low.

 

[merkmerk73]

Phosphate

Nitrates are at like 2-5ppm

Phosphates are consistently about .1, and never lower than .05

I think I just have too many fish - rowaphos in a reactor and my chaeto barely keep up!

 

[scotty333]

Drinking it or dosing it?

One for me one for you haha

 

[scotty333]

Phosphate

Nitrates are at like 2-5ppm

Phosphates are consistently about .1, and never lower than .05

I think I just have too many fish - rowaphos in a reactor and my chaeto barely keep up!

How olds the tank?

 

[merkmerk73]

How olds the tank?

Just shy of 2 years

 

[scotty333]

Right, only asked cos I was dosing lc until a month ago I went role reversal and hit 0 if I don’t feed exactly 11g of mysis and an inch of nori per day
It’s super steady at .06 with that , I even spread the feed 4 times through the day so it’s almost the same apart from night time it lowers with the caluerpa on reverse lighting
I wonder why with a 2 year old tank you can’t stabilise it or maybe my corals are using it , I guess around .1 per day but not experimented to get a number

 

[scotty333]

Phosphate

Nitrates are at like 2-5ppm

Phosphates are consistently about .1, and never lower than .05

I think I just have too many fish - rowaphos in a reactor and my chaeto barely keep up!

Oh 16 fish here 2-3”, 400ltr
FYI

 

[merkmerk73]

Right, only asked cos I was dosing lc until a month ago I went role reversal and hit 0 if I don’t feed exactly 11g of mysis and an inch of nori per day
It’s super steady at .06 with that , I even spread the feed 4 times through the day so it’s almost the same apart from night time it lowers with the caluerpa on reverse lighting
I wonder why with a 2 year old tank you can’t stabilise it or maybe my corals are using it , I guess around .1 per day but not experimented to get a number

I feed heavy but only low phosphate frozen

It could be the small pellets that I feed to the growing mandarins but it's probably just a heavy bio load

I have a 150g total volume with:

2x big bangai cardinals
1x hector goby
1x watchman goby
2x yasha goby pair
4x pistol shrimp (candy cane / randall)
1x biota yellow tang approx 1 year old
1x blue eyed kole tang
2x ocellaris clown
1x tailspot blenny
1x bicolor blenny (small)
1x pearly jawfish
2x springeri damsel
1x royal basslet
1x copperband butterlyfish
1x sixline wrasse
1x black sailfin blenny
2x mandarin pair (tiny female, adult male)

And a couple dozen snails and hermits

Lots of corals too


Even though it's a lot of small nano fish it's probably a large bioload

I really want to upgrade to a 180 in about a year

 

[scotty333]

First thing I’d do and I’m not teaching you how to suck eggs but ditch the phos loaded dry , yours like my mandarin will eat mysis as long as some passes your 19 other fish
That’ll reduce your po4 input , with the gfo are you running it 24/7?
I guess you’re constantly testing po4 ? Up and downs not great and I’d get a handle on some numbers that helped me
It’s not for everyone but lanthium chloride is super effective even at low doses ( read every you can ) what worked for me was agent greens lc , diluted 50% for more control fed via a doser
If you are consistent with your food you can balance the po4 with lc
It goes deep into the skimmer body in your first chamber into filter wool or roll mat etc ( some use socks but I hate them ) and you shouldn’t need with it going in the skimmer

Just an idea after a tedious journey myself