evoIX_Reefer

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Hey, so i think i went too sterile and causing pale coloration on my SPS. I prefer to keep it at a steady ~5ppm NO3 and .05ppm PO4.

I dropped both to near undetectable and .006ppm PO4.

I took GFO offline night before because i noticed chaeto die off, increased feeding, turned off skimmer and finally trimmed some chaeto.

Hopefully, chaeto cant control nopo on its own while I heavy feed. Yes, i will be daily testing to see when i should start all the above back on.

Anyone have another recommendation?
 

Wondering

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I had a similar issue recently. At first I tried to feed more heavily but nitrate didn?t go any higher. After about two weeks I added potassium nitrate and levels started to go up immediately. Phosphate level on the other hand was easily impacted by heavier feeding. You could use seachem flourish nitrogen if you can?t find potassium nitrate.
Also I kept running my skimmer without collection cup as it helps with gas exchange and keeping ph up.
 

vio

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Remove Chaetto , Macro Algae they are very aggressive on removing Nitrate , hard to balance, hard to know how much , you really need or how much you need to remove , check Potassium , must be around 400 ppm. Make one think at the time , list you will find the cause, never do 2 or 3 thinks same time.
 

Jamesmost

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Remove Chaetto , Macro Algae they are very aggressive on removing Nitrate , hard to balance, hard to know how much , you really need or how much you need to remove , check Potassium , must be around 400 ppm. Make one think at the time , list you will find the cause, never do 2 or 3 thinks same time.



Good advice...
 

evoIX_Reefer

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Dosing conservatively and feeding almost 3 times a day. po4 is back to detectable at .042ppm but nitrates have been near undetectable using salifert.

Dosing ESV potassium iodide, SR and trace elements (I mean 2-4 drops daily). I know they are being used up so I minus well keep atleast even a minimum until I decide to do an ICP test in the next month.

My kalkwasser was too aggressive with the amount of coral I have right now so I had to pull it back offline. haven't dosed at all this week to pull the alk and CA back into desired levels.

alk was at 10.2-10.4
CA at 430 (which is fine)

I have been running alk at 8.7-8.9 so a "decent" jump.

Either way, corals still growing, ton of PE, coloration has shown a slight increase with steps used. Just have to slowly but surely get parameters back up to all desired levels and stabilize it better.
 

vio

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High Alk. and low nutrition is NOT good.
There is a big reason , why Triton suggest Alk. around 8 dKH , so many articles in net about Denitrification bacteria and ALk.
To keep a strong , healthy system you need Alk. less or close to 8 dKH , dose some bacteria , lot of flow, list that my opinion.
 

evoIX_Reefer

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Yeah. I played around with kalk too early and raised my #s higher than i was holding it prior. So caused it to spike. I am letting it come down naturally to desired levels.
 

Niko

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I'm going through the same issue. I tried to starve my tank to eliminate algae and keep "clean" water for sps. Now I have detectable nutirents and I'm trying to keep them in balance. Not sure how to do the last step which is getting them up and keeping them elevated a bit. Any recommendations would be welcome!
 

vio

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I'm going through the same issue. I tried to starve my tank to eliminate algae and keep "clean" water for sps. Now I have detectable nutirents and I'm trying to keep them in balance. Not sure how to do the last step which is getting them up and keeping them elevated a bit. Any recommendations would be welcome!

Try to control first the Nitrate ( Vodka,Vinegar, Macro Algae) in my case Sulfur Filter, keep up to 5-6 ppm NO3 , steady, then is easy to control Po4 and figure how much (GFO) you need to keep 0.02 to 0.05 ppm ,i prefer Rowa.

Is ALL about steady balance, if Nitrate go UP and Down , same will be with PO4 , go undetectable or to much, Bacteria needs both.
 

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