Nitrates bottomed out at 0

[Fishy_Mcfish]

My nitrates have been stuck at 0 for some time now. Only way I can raise them is dosing Neo nitro. My phosphate levels are .15 and were checked with a Hannah ulr.

System is a 40 gal breeder with a sump. I have chaeto in the sump. I unplugged skimmer a few weeks ago to see if it would make a difference but it hasn’t . I do have some algae growing on rocks and on the glass. It takes it a few days to grow back on the glass enough to notice it.

Corals seems to be doing ok but they aren’t growing really. My zoas have been the same amount of polyps on each one for quite awhile. LPS corals look fine but aren’t really growing.

Alk is always at 7.3 or 7.4 but that’s a whole different issue and not related to the imbalance between the nitrate and phosphate levels.

Anyone have any insight or suggestions on how to correct these issues?

 

[Jetty]

I’d say your chateo is definitely consuming some of those nitrates but I don’t know how much it would using. Have you tried using a different test kit incase yours are bad?

 

[Fishy_Mcfish]

My chaeto doesn’t grow very fast though. I’ve used two different test kits for the nitrates and they both tested 0.
I dosed the neo nitro and got nitrates up to 4.3 but 24 hours later they were 0 again.

 

[Jetty]

Something has to be consuming those nitrates

 

[Fishy_Mcfish]

I did have a small bag of rowaphos in my sump as well. I took that out today. I had forgot it was in the sump.

 

[project1004]

My suggestion is input only without any export.

Your rock and sand bed might be sucking up all your nutrients if your tank is quite a new.

If you are dosing neo nitro to get your nitrate upto 4 but go back down to 0 in 24hrs (was that test done right after you dosed? Or waited a day after dosing to test? As it won’t matter testing right when it was dosed.

If you give us the amount of dosage it would make it easier for us to figure out perhaps since your tank is 40Gal. How much are you dosing?

 

[Fishy_Mcfish]

I dose 40 ml to get it to 4. I tested an hour after dosing just to see what the reading would be and then tested again 24 hours later and it read 0.
I’ve had the tank for about 4 months but i bought it off of someone else who had it running for over a year.

 

[project1004]

That’s good amount of liquid no3 but is not super excessive either for that size tank.

I was dosing upto 10ml a day of no3 in 24Gal for awhile just to keep no3 above 2-3. That was when my tank was not matured with aging. So your tank is needing to mature as well if that makes sense. Idk how much of corals and livestocks you have but that will play role into it too.

I still dose 2.5ml daily no3 because tank being small, feeding will cause excessive nutrients and will have to adjust for export.

 

[Fishy_Mcfish]

Full tank shot. Everything is doing well except for my birdsnest. It’s looking rough

 

[Fishy_Mcfish]

I do have this algae growing in a few spots near the top of the tank. That’s just popped up in the last month or so.

 

[MattLaw]

I assume you are not carbon dosing or adding anything like microbacter?

 

[Fishy_Mcfish]

I assume you are not carbon dosing or adding anything like microbacter?

No sir I am not

 

[project1004]

You see the algae. Use them as your tool to control the nutrient. It’s not bad yet, so I would work on your other parameters while keeping your dosing the same and see where the algae are in few weeks maybe. What’s more important then that of no3/po4 is the stability of your alk/calc/mag.