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Help Needed: Live Rock Bacteria & Nitrate question

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My tank runs regularly at 0.08-0.1 Phosphates, and 0 Nitrates. Corals are healthy and all looks good. But, in my Icarian quest for brighter colors I started dosing NeoNitro a few months ago. This jump started some Cyano which I’ve been dealing with ever since. No natural remedies have worked, and now I’m planning to resort to ChemiClean.

My main concern is that I do not want to kill all, or ideally any, of the beneficial bacteria in my tank. If I take the media out of my sump, can I reintroduce it with no issues after the 2 day ChemiClean period and water change? Or, does the media in my sump have Cyanobacteria which I’d be reintroducing to the tank despite it looking clean?

My main priority is the health and safety of my fish and corals, and I don’t want to kill any strains of bacteria which they may be thriving on.

Once the cyano is cleaned, would you guys still try raising nitrates (how?), or let the tank do its thing if everything is happy enough?
 
This is what has happened to me over the years and what I’ve noticed.
I try not to use chemiclean unless I really have too. Let’s say you tried everything. More flow, vacuum it out , etc. nothing is working for you. So you’re gonna drop chemiclean. I’ve been there. I believe it will hurt your bio. It won’t kill it but definitely will damage it. Some corals will perk up and some will go the other way. Right after the treatment tho. Dinos will come if your bio is weak and can’t recover. So let say Dino’s come. Then I dose pods. Lots of them. Phyto might help too. But your on that slippery slope so test that N and P. And keep it off the bottom.
Honestly tho. I would bump up flow and get the N and P off the bottom now.
I make my own diy solutions for N and P. I dose daily and test weekly.
 
Turkeysammich said:
I make my own diy solutions for N and P. I dose daily and test weekly.
Click to expand...
Do you think dosing nitrate on a relatively new tank is reasonable? My nitrates are bottomed out right now. I'm increasing feeding to try to get it up, but if that doesn't help I would consider manually dosing nitrate.
 
I second Will’s sentiment. Do not use chemiclean. Improve your flow, very strong flow, and continue to manually remove.

I also believe Nitrate should not be manually dosed but provided via high nitrate lower phosphate food, such as mysis.

I also believe that these water parameters suggested by FM help - except the N/P ratio, which is hard to achieve and I do not believe it matters as much if at all. But the other three should have a meaningful impact.

IMG_2691.jpeg
 
There is cyano bacteria everywhere in our environment—not only your reef tank. You could set up a new tank, add no livestock, and eventually cyano will find its way into the tank since cyano bacteria can travel hundreds of miles inland from bodies of water. More tangibly, it is almost certain that you have cyano in your bathroom—that is what causes the pinkish growth commonly seen in sinks, toilets, showers, etc.

The issues you have is a microbiome imbalance. I would try to exhaust all natural means first including daily manual removal. Chemiclean definitely works—hopefully it doesn’t lead to dinos. Even if it does it is not end of the world since dinos can also be readily dealt with. Hopefully you don’t get into the cycle where you have to dose Chemiclean every few months.
 
I have no visible cyanobacteria in my tank. I also use magnetic frag racks. Guess what likes to grow between the frag rack and the glass where there’s little to no flow: cyanobacteria.

You won’t get rid of all cyanobacteria in the tank, you’re just trying to shift the balance toward other benthic organisms

That happens by changing parameters, increasing flow, and if those are done and things don’t change, try chemiclean to poke/jostle the ecosystem until it finds the new balance
 
Srt4eric said:
@H2OPlayar uses chemiclean to do water changes with his skimmer.
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Used to relative often, like every 2-3 months. Now I am lazier and just let it be in my new system because it is still too new to care. I don't hate using 1/2 dose of chemiclean to do a water change, but now that I know more about the bacteria, I would say try to avoid that treatment if you can. It totally works, but like Will said, it will screw with your biotope. I probably had/have so much live rock and crushed coral volume that the bacterial load would come back relatively quickly after my chemiclean dose.

Raise nitrates by feeding more and more often. Counter the higher phosphates with phosphate remover like gfo, or I use Lanthanum Chloride now dosed into my skimmer neck.
 
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Sounds good.

You guys have convinced me to give it another go naturally, which is my preference anyways. I’ll double my feeding of Mysis to try and bring up the nitrates, and stay on top of the manual removal. Can’t do much about increasing flow but I never had an issue for 2 years prior, so, fingers crossed.
 
Why can you not increase the flow? Usually, I attribute water parameter issues as the main reason for many reef problems, but for cyano, strong flow should go a long way.
 
Why do you add nitrate? I presume you are doing so in order to provide nitrogen correct? Then why not add an ammonium compound instead e.g. ammonium chloride or ammonium bicarbonate? Coral prefers to use nitrogen in the form of ammonium since it is much easier to absorb for them as the energy required to separate the N from the rest of the compound is less metabolically "expensive" then trying to get it from NO3. Adding ammonium has several other benefits over using NO3 such as increasing resistance to bleaching and increasing growth.

Feeding the Color: How Ammonium Bicarbonate Can Transform Your SPS Tank | coralvue.com

What if adding more nitrogen to your reef tank was the key to unlocking vibrant color and accelerated coral growth? For many reefers who've been chasing ultra-low nutrient systems, this concept might sound counterintuitive. But according to longtime reef expert Michael Paletta, dosing ammonium...
www.coralvue.com www.coralvue.com
 
CharlesJohns58 said:
Why do you add nitrate? I presume you are doing so in order to provide nitrogen correct? Then why not add an ammonium compound instead e.g. ammonium chloride or ammonium bicarbonate? Coral prefers to use nitrogen in the form of ammonium since it is much easier to absorb for them as the energy required to separate the N from the rest of the compound is less metabolically "expensive" then trying to get it from NO3. Adding ammonium has several other benefits over using NO3 such as increasing resistance to bleaching and increasing growth.

Feeding the Color: How Ammonium Bicarbonate Can Transform Your SPS Tank | coralvue.com

What if adding more nitrogen to your reef tank was the key to unlocking vibrant color and accelerated coral growth? For many reefers who've been chasing ultra-low nutrient systems, this concept might sound counterintuitive. But according to longtime reef expert Michael Paletta, dosing ammonium...
www.coralvue.com www.coralvue.com
Click to expand...
I have found dosing ammonia as an affective way to keep my nitrates from bottoming out.

Here are my notes, mostly based on posts from Randy Holmes-Farley on Reef2Reef:

Dosing Ammonia
  • More bio available than nitrate
  • 20 grams of ammonium bicarbonate (about 4 and 3/4 teaspoons) in 1 L RO/DI water
  • To add 0.1 mg/L ammonia to an aquarium add 2.3 mL of solution per 100 L (26 gallon). Dosing multiple times per day is fine. 8.0 mg/L is when gets dangerous for fish. Does above is very safe since any amount is consumed quickly
I also have a bottle of DIY nitrate solution around if I feel compelled to make a quick adjustment but I haven’t touched that bottle in over 2 years.
 
Have you tried a three day black out? But agree unless you increase flow and get nutrients/ bacteria in check may come back also double check ur rodi filters
Interesting read using using calcium bicarbonate + Microbacter7 for cyano this gentleman's tanks are pretty amazing!

www.reef2reef.com

Extreme Water Clarity and Cyano Eradication, Made Easy!

Edit 10/092023: Note that I have tweaked the formula a bit. You can find an updated video here: Coral Snow Link: Coral Snow Hello all! I have been reefing now for about 25 years, and over those many years I have picked up many tips, tricks, and best habits/practices. From a hobbyist and...
www.reef2reef.com www.reef2reef.com
 

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CharlesJohns58 said:
Why do you add nitrate? I presume you are doing so in order to provide nitrogen correct? Then why not add an ammonium compound instead e.g. ammonium chloride or ammonium bicarbonate? Coral prefers to use nitrogen in the form of ammonium since it is much easier to absorb for them as the energy required to separate the N from the rest of the compound is less metabolically "expensive" then trying to get it from NO3. Adding ammonium has several other benefits over using NO3 such as increasing resistance to bleaching and increasing growth.

Feeding the Color: How Ammonium Bicarbonate Can Transform Your SPS Tank | coralvue.com

What if adding more nitrogen to your reef tank was the key to unlocking vibrant color and accelerated coral growth? For many reefers who've been chasing ultra-low nutrient systems, this concept might sound counterintuitive. But according to longtime reef expert Michael Paletta, dosing ammonium...
www.coralvue.com www.coralvue.com
Click to expand...
@CharlesJohns58 -Question on this-is there time of day/night where this should not be dosed? That is when optimal period where there is uptake from corals. I did attempt this once and two of my fish bought the farm in that week. I don't think it was the amount dosed per se-but rather the error of both the food and ammonium bicarbonate coming from the return pump and my wrasse got a mouthful even though dosed at very separate times or some food was tainted. Didn't autopsy the fish so I can't prove. if I try again in the future, I'll put the dosing tube in the corner of the tank to avoid that. Right now dosing sodium nitrate and it seems ok for the time being.
 
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I will preface this by saying I have not played around with adding ammonium in any form, my system is a bit large to tinker with like that. However, I would suggest dosing in the morning after the lights go on as photosynthesis will be ramping up then and hence I would imagine along with an increased demand for nitrogen. Research has shown that pulses of ammonium are better than trying the maintain a constant level. I have papers on this but don't remember which ones off the top of my head. If you combine this with papers that have shown the effects of pulses of ammonium and nutrients from fish schools hanging around a coral and/or defecating on them, it makes sense. There are also a few studies comparing coral growth around islands with and without seabird colonies and you see slightly higher values of both N and P and significantly faster coral growth. I should add the caveat that with increased N dosing there will most likely also be an increased demand for P. If you provide only the one (N) and not enough of the other, then P starvation may be the result. Again, another reason to just add the N has a pulse as opposed to trying to maintain a level by using a doser to constantly add it. It is not a good idea to maintain persistent levels of ammonium. The methods available to most hobbyists are not sensitive enough to measure the levels of N and P typically found on wild, oligotrophic reefs, so even though your test kit reads zero, its not literally zero, its just that the level is below the minimum detectable limit of your test.

A theory I have is that when you are adding N in the form of ammonium, you can't really measure it and as such you don't really know your total N level in the tank (NH4+NO2+NO3). As a result, trying to determine if P is limiting becomes impossible. I would be curious to hear from those who have/are used/using ammonium carbonate, do you see any changes in your NO3 level? Increase? Decrease? No change?
 
Not disagreeing with Charles, of course, but just wanted to highlight that Fauna is selling an ammonium-based product and has instructions on when to dose, 30 minutes before lights go on, and not if you have elevated nutrients already <20 / 0.2 mg/L N/P, and they seem to recommend a dosing approach similar to the described pulses.

Not saying you need this product but can leverage the instructions, potentially.

I use it for the nano tank and it does not seem to move the needle much on NO3, only after increasing the amount closer to the max recommended level.

 
I used chemiclean not long ago (@H2OPlayar method), and did an Aquabiomics test before and after. My Cyano disappeared and and there was no impact to my biome results (still extremely high diversity after the treatment) other than the Cyano fell off the report.

I also noticed that my acropora all perked up quite a bit after the treatment and my journal notes that corals looked "happier than they have in a long time" in the days and weeks following.

I think chemiclean is too risky on a tank that's young and/or does NOT have a highly diverse biome, though - I used it on a young tank once and it triggered an apocalyptic dino infestation.
 
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