New 73 gallon tank setup

[Frogger]

Originally Posted by tang daddy

I have about 25 fish and feed 3-5x per day dirty food like pei mysis plus coral food so definately a lot of feeding.

The heavy feeding is why you have enough nitrates to keep the colours in your corals but not enough to control your phosphates.

I have always been a light feeder of my fish, as there is enough going on in the tank to keep them healthy. My only concern with adding a lot of food is I would be adding more phosphate and would not achieve that balance. That is why I am now adding the KNO3 and amino acids (which are all nitrates) and not adding phosphates.

Still no nitrates measurable in my system. I will go to 10mls 3 times a day plus daily amino acid additions.

[tang daddy]

Originally Posted by Frogger

The heavy feeding is why you have enough nitrates to keep the colours in your corals but not enough to control your phosphates.

I have always been a light feeder of my fish, as there is enough going on in the tank to keep them healthy. My only concern with adding a lot of food is I would be adding more phosphate and would not achieve that balance. That is why I am now adding the KNO3 and amino acids (which are all nitrates) and not adding phosphates.

Still no nitrates measurable in my system. I will go to 10mls 3 times a day plus daily amino acid additions.

True to the above, that is why I do 5g wc every 3 days. I keep anthias and they like to eat, plus some of the other fish need to be fattened up. Once they are overweight I'll back off on the feeding. I am not that concerned with po4 as it is easily controlled via rowaphos. If I can increase the nitrates it should drop to po4 further. I stated in my journal I noticed my sps with the best growth when po4 was hovering in the .04-.10 range any higher and the growth slows down drastically.

[Frogger]

After 4 days of dosing KNO3 I finally have a readable nitrate level in the tank. .25ppm . I have been adding 35mls of the KNO3 solution daily (that is the equivalent of almost .8ppm of nitrate for my tank volume daily). I may be imaging things but a few of the corals appear to have a little more colour. Too early to be certain. I will continue to add the same amount of KNO3.

My calcium level has dropped 50ppm since Saturday. I have even been adding a bit more calcium in the past week because I felt 410 might be a little low. My only guess is nitrate was the limiting factor in the growth of corals and coralline algae. Once nitrates are available these processes have kicked in using more of the calcium. I will double my dose of calcium to try to get it back on track.

I had heard that dosing KNO3 raises alkalinity so I have reduced my buffer addition in half over the past 4 days and I am stable at 9dkh

[iamfrontosa]

I think you are on the right track.

[gregzz4]

Sounds like it's working well Glen(?)
For the record, Ryan Erickson gets credit for this. I read something he posted awhile back and picked his brain about it. He wrote about adding NO3, and while talking with Jon @ J&L he suggested Seachem's Nitrogen. Ryan may have also mentioned it, but I don't recall ... it was last year

@ Tang Daddy;
I used Seachem Nitrogen and had no issues due to their product. I did add too much too fast though. This dropped my PO4 so quickly that my corals were a bit PO'd for some time after.

And for everyone;
Looking back through my records, I started dosing 2ml/day back in early November. Nothing happened for days so I bumped it to 5ml/day. Couple days later I finally read 5ppm NO3. PO4 dropped from 0.06 to 0.03. A week later NO3 was up to 10 and PO4 was 0. Then the tissue recession and bleaching started ...
Had I known there would be such a drastic effect I would have tested daily.

I pulled my GFO and PO4 rose back to 0.04. I continued to test/dose until PO4 was stable, then stopped dosing. I also pulled my Carbon.
This was early January and I haven't dosed any Nitrogen since.
March 30th Hanna told me PO4 is @ 0.01 and Salifert reported 0ppm NO3.
It's been 2 weeks since a 25% WC (due tonight) and I just tested before another WC;
PO4 is @ 0.03 and NO3 is @ 0ppm.

Currently I only have 4 fish in the DT, plus a couple shrimps and some hermies. They are fed pellets for lunch, and I rotate between 2 different kinds of flakes or a cube of frozen for dinner. Plus nori a couple times a week. When I feed, it's like it's snowing in the tank so there should be higher readings ...
If I feed them any more they'll pop !!
I have some fish in QT and will be doubling my fish load in the near future. This will cause some new testing/dosing, but I hope it will help increase my levels enough to get some NO3 and PO4 readings without having to tweak things too much.

Hope this helps someone, and good luck Glen

[Frogger]

From what I had read on the internet the Flourish Nitrogen contains KNO3 and Urea. I wanted to use a source, Pure KNO3, where I could control the exact amount of Nitrate I wanted and really didn't want to add urea.

My tank has been at between .5 to .75ppm NO3 and phosphates are steady at .02ppm. I have been adding 35mls per day of the mixture and it appears to be working. The colours are beginning to look better. However the calcium uptake has gone through the roof and I have had to triple my calcium additions. I am assuming that growth was limited by the very low nitrates and now that they are there growth has kicked in. Too early to measure effectiveness.

I am still using GFO. I will stop using GFO if my phosphates drop too low.

I might still go higher with my nitrates although I really want to take this slow. I will probably keep my nitrates at around 1 for a few weeks and see what happens before I will go higher.

[gregzz4]

What are you using to test NO3?

[Frogger]

I am using Red Sea Pro Nitrate Test. I made up a batch of NO3 .8ppm calibration solution using Randy Holmes-Farley recommendations and my test kit was bang on.

[Frogger]

I have been able to maintain my nitrates at .5ppm for 5 days. I have been adding 40mls of the KNO3 solution daily.

My phosphates have dropped off the chart. I am almost using no GFO and my phosphates were .003ppm. Still too low. Before I started raising my nitrates my phosphates were over 2ppm and I was using a ton of GFO to keep it respectable. So just for controlling phosphates this is a win.

The colours of my corals are getting better.
This blue matrix was brown before I started adding nitrates.
Attachment 15823
This red planet was very pale
Attachment 15824
This Hawkins was dull
Attachment 15825

These pictures were taken from above, the other picture were taken from in front and I fixed the white balance on my camera. They are still not show quality but the colours have improved quite a bit.

[DKoKoMan]

I can't get my phosphates under 0.25ppm even with the use of gfo in a reactor and Foz Down. I can't complain as my corals have nice colours and decent growth. From the sounds of it your nitrates are registering and your Cora are improving which is great. Keep us posted.