Nitrates?

DRC Archive General Saltwater Discussion
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I’m curious about what nitrates you have in your systems, and if none… how long have they been at zero, and do you feed light or heavy, in general?

My tank has been up for nearly two years, and has 0 nitrates since the tank was about 4 months old. I’m a light feeder. About 5-6 frozen cubes a week, a chunk of nori weekly, and a pinch or two of pellets on the two days in the week they dont get frozen. I just watch their bellies… dont let em get too thin, or too fat.
In the past i also supplemented live rotifers and phyto, but havent done that in 8 months or so.

Anyway, i remember some corals growing, and coloring better, back when i had trace nitrates… (around 5-10)
and have been wondering if its more beneficial to the whole system to feed it more?
I’ve been maintaining my main params consistently alk from 7-9… mostly 8, calcium around 410-420, Mg always close to 1250, give or take a bit. And some coral, mainly sps, birdsnest, pocci, milli, monti cap… some rtn, stn… some came close to death but have recovered 50% in the last couple weeks. There are also frags of these same corals in the tank that aren’t having any issues at all. Its bizarre, and no pests to be found that could be blamed. Water changes haven’t been done as much as i’d like in the past 6 months… a pitifull few here and there… but always 0 nitrates.
My questions are, am i completely depleting the tank of trace elements?
Are there un -measurable amounts of pollutants that build up that aren’t measurable? smoking, household cleaning products, dog farts etc…?
More flow? but they’ve had roughly the same for a year plus?
Or my favorite theory, chemical warfare of some sort between coral.

This all just sounds like part of the “Coral Game” after being in the club for a couple years, but it drives me crazy when you cant test, or find a definite culprit for this crap.

Same coral, diff spots of the tank, roughly the same light and flow, some fine… some not

Basically, my tanks done better, growth and colorwise in the past, with same parameters.
Don’t get me wrong, the tank is still looking nice, and healthy… just some of these sps are driving me crazy.
verdict_in verdict_in verdict_in verdict_in verdict_in verdict_in verdict_in verdict_in verdict_in verdict_in

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I have a LNS Nitrates undetectable with API and between 0 - 0.25 with read sea pro test, Phos. between .02 and.04 with Hanna Checker, I feed fish Spectrum pellets about 3 times a week and frozen 5 bar or PE Mysis 3 times a week, and spot feed coral two times a week with a mix of cyclop eeze, Brightwell PhytoChrom and Zooplanktos-M.
I over skim and do a weekly 10% water changes.

All Acros and torts do fine, with the exception of birds nest for some reason I can not keep a bird nests of any kind healthy for more then a couple months, seems to be the only coral that gives me problems.

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Well John, anyone collecting SPS has to be a little crazy to start with, LOL. >LOCO< Simply because they are the hardest corals to keep and IMO the best looking color combos. With that being said, I have found that each and every SPS coral will react to a change in the water params differently. So, I guess what I am saying is that, consistent water params are what I try and achieve. I think by doing water changes on a steady interval helps tremendously. I now keep my W/C no more that 30 days apart. Also I think maintaining a steady ph reading is important also. Recently, I was able to run the air intake for my skimmer into the garage, where there is outside air, and my ph readings are a steady 8.0 to 8.2 daily. Another condition that should be kept up is bulb changing, don’t let your bulbs get too old, they will not be giving the same light levels as brand new.
Hope this makes some sense and is by no means a sure fire way to keep SPS. But if you stick to these guidelines, it will take some of the crazyiness away. YahoO

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Hudzon said something in the first sentence there that was my first thought. Stating that you have “0 Nitrates” in your aquarium you must realize your either lying to yourself or rounding. The resolution and accuracy of your test kits come into play, but with out diving into discussing that to the point where no one likely cares the key points.
Corals won’t grow in a perfectly clean sterile unfed aquarium. Yeah there is very very low levels of nitrates and phosphates on natural reefs, but there are also tons and tons of fish eating tons and tons of crustaceans and algae and crapping over the corals. “Coral farms” introduce nutrients either by keeping fish in the aquarium, feeding planktons or “coral foods”, or some even add a bit of Phosphate or Nitrates to the system chemically.

Large leather corals will release significant toxins in the water and slow the growth of corals, so some activated carbon may help increase growth rates.(over doing activated carbon can take away some elements from the aquarium that will decrease the growth rates, so as with everything it is a balance)

John hit something on the head as well that wasn’t talked about which is your lighting. Many now say T5 bulbs can spectrum shift as early as 6 months.(I believe I pissed off Mr.Saltwater tank and made him make it so no one could post comments on his YouTube video because I wanted to discuss this topic with him and it made some of his advice sound poor, but that is a side now.)

We established this time a year ago that your pH in your aquarium was low and your pH test kits were trash, but then in the months where your house was likely more open you decided your growth rates were fine, but perhaps now that your house is closed up tight for the winter pH may be part of the issue? Just a shot in the dark.

The other thing that can slow growth rates is having to compete. If a sea anemone of some sort is nested near the base of a coral the colony may not crash and of course won’t be able to base out much, but just for the colony to survive it may be using significant energy that it could otherwise be putting into growth.

A million and one factors all at once are influencing things, but just a couple to think over.

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Thanks Frank. And John and Jon, you both touched on two major things i’ve been questioning myself… ph, and bulbs. Its just funny how some are affected (coral), some not verdict_in maybe they grew more used to the conditions? ::thinking:: And another thing are those green little anemones i have, i def agrre with you there Jon, i can see them affecting coral they’re near. And the big leather and its toxins, i should be on a more routine carbon changing schedule.
Thanks for the input guys, it helps having other opinions GolfC

And Jon, i lie to myself about many things ::rofl:: … but never nitrates. I use an API kit, and it doesn’t change color even the slightest bit… i never tested it further then that.

I think i’l start with a w/c, and re-doing my intake of skimmer to outside air again. I had it hooked up before, but felt i needed a bigger hose to not restrict the skimmer air pull. I had about 7’ of small ro tubing, think i’ll run some 1/2 or 3/8’’ pvc the bulk of that distance. My bulbs…( all 12) are just about a year old and should be replaced as far as i know, but we’ll see how tax season goes for that ???
When we did a 20g w/c a few weeks back, and pulled out a bunch of dead stuff (sps) and ripped out a ton of gsp that had covered a xenia colony, i saw the improvement in some of the affected colonies. Hopefully just some simple maintenance, and a few small changes will get me back to growing some purple bonsai again ( i still have a small piece kicking)… And My orange setosa, which looked liked death a month ago, is 80% recovered, and looking great besides where algae grew on a couple of bleached tips.
again, thanks for the advice

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In my experience things can tend to land slide. In my stony main display tank I haven’t hardly run carbon at all in a long time and I have several good size leathers. If the lighting is getting a bit week and toxins are effecting and pH is low and anemone stinging at the base… Many little things can make some things which typically wouldn’t effect things a bit more difficult to over come.

You never say I would have .568 times the growth rate I would have now if I changed my bulbs two months sooner then I have. You do what you can. Never too much at a time, never too quickly.

For what it’s worth every aquarist can get upset over one little 1" acro not growing as much as we would like… pull yourself away from the tank for a second. Walk into the room pretending your looking at someone else tank and look at the overall tank and not the fine details. John your tank looks sweet, so don’t sweat the small stuff.

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[quote=“Gordonious, post:6, topic:5137”]
For what it’s worth every aquarist can get upset over one little 1" acro not growing as much as we would like… pull yourself away from the tank for a second. Walk into the room pretending your looking at someone else tank and look at the overall tank and not the fine details. John your tank looks sweet, so don’t sweat the small stuff. [/quote]Thanks Jon, i appreciate that. All in all, and overall i can’t really complain. I think its probably a combination of many smalls things. I just wish i knew for sure to avoid any large colony losses in the future. I’m just now at about 2 year experience with sps, and still learning all the time. Things just went sooo well in the first year, when i was still learning, and now trying to figure out the “magic” ingredients of success. Its funny though how some things do better, while others don’t ( ex. my lps are growing better throughout the sps problems, algae blooms less, but some decrease in coral growth)… the joys of trying to keep everything happy in a mixed reef i guess. I’ve still never had much growth at all with zoas and Palys… except those devils tooth/ sea foam palys which grow like gsp.

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In combination with everything else try a little something else. It can be playing with fire if not done carefully, but try a little bit of cyclopeeze. I find the dry stuff easiest to feed. SMALL AMOUNTS, soaked thoroughly before adding. Keep up with water changes, carbon, and skimming and the slight increase in Nitrates will be ok as long as you don’t go overboard. If your zoanthids have never grown well this will likely help. If you find the cyclopeeze annoying to feed try Brightwell’s Macrovore and or Zooplanktos-L.

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[quote=“Gordonious, post:8, topic:5137”]
In combination with everything else try a little something else. It can be playing with fire if not done carefully, but try a little bit of cyclopeeze. I find the dry stuff easiest to feed. SMALL AMOUNTS, soaked thoroughly before adding. Keep up with water changes, carbon, and skimming and the slight increase in Nitrates will be ok as long as you don’t go overboard. If your zoanthids have never grown well this will likely help. If you find the cyclopeeze annoying to feed try Brightwell’s Macrovore and or Zooplanktos-L. [/quote]

Any reason dry over frozen cyclopeze? just curious if its preference or more concentrated nutrients?
and i’ll take a look at the brightwell stuff that you mentioned… does DPA carry it?

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Not sure exactly what DPA has, but they have more of their products then anyone else locally.(just about no one carries there full line in every size, I believe there is a couple hundred products) If you can’t find it there let me know.

Frozen can be hard to get a small piece to thaw. Some people will drip the end of the frozen bar in the tank for a second, but if a large chunk falls in the tank you could have a TON of food in the tank in seconds and be in big trouble. You can use a blade to shave off a bit, but it’e annoying to hold the frozen slippery package and carve off little pieces(I’m not an ice sculptor) I have also had some frozen bars shift from red to brown in my freezer before they were used up. I keep the dry stuff in my refrigerator and don’t stick wet hands in the container and it lasts a long long time.(even with all the tanks I have in my basement I feed with it)

Frozen may be 1% healthier for the corals, but annoying to use.

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Gotcha… i’ve used frozen in the past, and there is a TON, contained in a small cube. I’ll have to pick up a freeze dried container, it’ll probably last a long time ::thumbsup::

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I use frozen, but waste a lot as I thaw it, mix it with the brightwell food I add and a little water from the tank and then spot feed with it.