High nitrates , 0 phosphate help!
 

Hey guys , so I am stumped been in this hobby for 10 years and never had this issue..

So this is a new tank been running for about 11 months . No corals , 5 fish , and my nitrates have been hovering around 60 ppm
For the last 6 months ... I been doing weekly 30% water changes for the past 2 months (was doing twice a month prior) but no change. Using a seachem test kit my phosphate is 0 clear as day . I cant get my nitrates to drop with feeding once a day.i have never had so much problems with nitrate in my previous set ups and I am out of ideas.. and fish are happy

Specs:
180g tank with 55g sump
Over 200lbs of live rock
Vertex 180 skimmer
Less than half inch sand bed

Thank you kindly :)https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...7a52a5c0e2.jpg

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Nitrates are harmless to fish at the levels you have.

Why worry about them? If you were growing corals they would likely use up the nitrates.

Oh! Yea I am not worried about the fish , I want to introduce some easy lps, but worried they will not survive the high nitrates .. yea I heard xenia reduces nitrates but not sure if it will survive in my tank

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Bringing your PO4 up should help reduce your NO3. I use Seachem Flourish Phosphorus liquid plant food.
Start with small doses until you see an effect. Once you get the NO3 down you should be able to stop dosing.

Actually, I’m not sure that will work since you have no corals to consume it.
You may need to chemically remove the nitrates

That is what I was thinking. If he started added phosphates now he will just get algae and more cyno. I think the high nitrates are fine, once he starts adding corals if he brings his phosphates slowly up his corals will start using the nitrates and he may be fine.

Thank you I will try that this weekend , and see how it goes :)

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Ya, I agree

You mean adding some corals, right? Don't add any phosphates right now

On a side note, unless you want it all, you don't need so much rock.
I have a 60g sump on my 75g DT for a total of 115g system water with less than 40lbs of LR. I have a decent skimmer and change out a 7" sock weekly.

With so much rock I forsee detritus issues in your future with PO4 and NO3 leaching back into your water.

That product looks like it will suit your needs. You'll use pretty much the whole tub - based on your tank size and I'm assuming you have a sump.
Good on ya Jon.
Hopefully the link survives the Mods ...

carbon dosing and biomedia that host bacteria all require phosphates to be present to be effective... if your phosphate is actually 0 (I don’t know how reliable/accurate the test kit you are using is) you will need to Add phosphate to lower nitrates.

Looks like if he uses the orca labs stuff he won't need to add PO4.
The stuff is designed to work in low PO4 tanks.

Low phosphate tanks... not 0 phosphate tanks... regardless of the product bacteria (along with every other biological being) require phosphate... his tank (and mine) is likely so low in phosphate the natural bacteria present is phosphate limited. My nitrate is 15-25 (salifert) and phosphorus is 0 (ULR Hanna) I have started adding (yesterday) flourish phosphorus at 1ml/day in approx 200 gal. That would provide 0.005 PPM of phosphate. We’ll see if that makes a difference.
Cheers
Dan.