How are your corals suffering? What are you seeing?
How do you lower Nitrates
- Thread starter Ayman
- Start date
How are your corals suffering? What are you seeing?
Coral reefer
Past President
Took awhile to get there. Gonna take awhile to come back. Slow and steady
Kensington Reefer
Supporting Member
increase the size and frequency of the water changes...
tribbitt
Supporting Member
Both are organic carbon sources, but are different molecules and some sources say different organisms may prefer one form or another. But the cyanobacteria is all observational and could be a mind story anyway
You could try dosing iron, vacuuming very small portions of the sandbed during water changes, or doing larger / more frequent water changes.
What temperature do you keep your tank at @CaseyP ?
Most gonis were pissed off. The XXX goni that has grown very well for me and have made dozens of frags off of still doesn't extend all the way and there's a patch that died off. Big colony of green tip, also grown from a frag, is nearly white. Other gonis had receding flesh. Bubblegum digi colony 90% gone but the remaining tips are recovering. Same with goldenrod anacropora. Most acros are fine and growing but poor coloration except for CB malificent which had a couple episodes of RTN on some branches.
77-79º. What's the rationale behind iron?
tribbitt
Supporting Member
Encourages nutrient uptake by photosynthesis -> herbivore biomass & manual removal (scrape the film and suck it out). Heard about this from Australian reefkeeper with a background in marine bio and the logic seems sound to me.
I'm kind of curious about light levels and nutrient reduction. When I turn the flow off, my rock begins bubbling as benthic microalgae photosynthesize, and maybe this scales with light? But this is purely wondering aloud
Vodka dosing worked for me to bring NO3 down from 80 to 15ppm over the course of 8 weeks. I used the accelerated ramp that MiamiReef posted over on R2R, and ultimately was dosing 40% more than the “max”. I did get a little cyano but not bad. I’ve since switched to DIY NOPOX. You can also dose straight vinegar and most people report less cyano with vinegar.
Unclear if related but I’ve been getting (a lot) of diatoms since I started carbon dosing. Just put in a turf scrubber so may ween off the carbon dosing eventually if it helps.
Unclear if related but I’ve been getting (a lot) of diatoms since I started carbon dosing. Just put in a turf scrubber so may ween off the carbon dosing eventually if it helps.
Herbivores don’t really “remove” it though - they poop it back into the system. This approach makes sense but only if you are manually pulling all of the algae growth out of the tank, otherwise the nutrients don’t actually go anywhere right?
Not really any different than a refugium or scrubber method.
Coral reefer
Past President
Corals can use it the second time around and ideally will if you’ve removed a lot of algae from the system
Also every time nutrients go through a cycle it gives the skimmer another chance to remove them as they go through their skimmable phases. Whether by stimulating uptake with iron (basically always rate limiting) or carbon (usually rate limiting) or photosynthesis (also usually rate limiting, since it’s just another form of carbon).
fishy408
Supporting Member
I try to keep things natural as much as possible, below are the the things I have done to keep nutrients in check.
- Add more corals: Increased biomass absorbs available PO₄ and NO₃, helping lower overall nutrient levels.
- Increase pH: Higher pH accelerates coral calcification and growth, which boosts their demand for nutrients.
- Remove detritus: Clearing out accumulated waste prevents it from decomposing and releasing additional PO₄ and NO₃.
Kensington Reefer
Supporting Member
Hmmmmm
I do have a huge hex that could accommodate that…..