Neptune Aquatics

Nitrate and Phosphate

You might right-size your chaeto light as others suggested to the bioload, H160 is going to be a better match than H80, get more chaeto if you only have like a golf-ball size clump or something (your tank needs a basketball sized clump...) and add something like Brightwell microbacter to help export the nitrate via your skimmer. I hope you are running your skimmer and refugium light 24 hours?

You are going to have to work really hard to avoid a tank crash, with high nitrates at T=2 months with a large sand bed your best outlook is nuisance algae. You don’t have enough corals or coralline yet to compete with algae, and you may not be able to acclimate urchins or sea hares to such high nitrates, which means algae has a chance to take a good hold early on. I would buy one or two urchins immediately and if they can’t live in your water, you should lower your nitrates via water changes, because you are going to need about 30 urchins when the algae hits. And if you have not been removing your corals from the plugs you already have 6 kinds of nuisance algae that have probably already spreading. Lol! I hate algae and someday after spending 4 hours cleaning algae from your tank during your weekend you will understand why we are all getting upset with PTSD looking at your setup.
 
Chromis said:
add something like Brightwell microbacter to help export the nitrate via your skimmer.
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Question from a fellow newb: how would this help export the nitrate via the skimmer? Would the bacteria ingest NO3-containing compounds, and which are then removed by bacteria sticking to skimmer bubbles? Or another mechanism that's escaping me right now?
 
Chromis said:
You might right-size your chaeto light as others suggested to the bioload, H160 is going to be a better match than H80, get more chaeto if you only have like a golf-ball size clump or something (your tank needs a basketball sized clump...) and add something like Brightwell microbacter to help export the nitrate via your skimmer. I hope you are running your skimmer and refugium light 24 hours?

You are going to have to work really hard to avoid a tank crash, with high nitrates at T=2 months with a large sand bed your best outlook is nuisance algae. You don’t have enough corals or coralline yet to compete with algae, and you may not be able to acclimate urchins or sea hares to such high nitrates, which means algae has a chance to take a good hold early on. I would buy one or two urchins immediately and if they can’t live in your water, you should lower your nitrates via water changes, because you are going to need about 30 urchins when the algae hits. And if you have not been removing your corals from the plugs you already have 6 kinds of nuisance algae that have probably already spreading. Lol! I hate algae and someday after spending 4 hours cleaning algae from your tank during your weekend you will understand why we are all getting upset with PTSD looking at your setup.
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Well said. Its not just the light...the size of chaetos should be proportionate to what is attempted to be achieved. Is it nutrients control? Is it supplementary? Is it maintenance?
 
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IOnceWasLegend said:
Question from a fellow newb: how would this help export the nitrate via the skimmer? Would the bacteria ingest NO3-containing compounds, and which are then removed by bacteria sticking to skimmer bubbles? Or another mechanism that's escaping me right now?
Click to expand...
Think of the no3 as the final product of nutrients decay.
The mechanical filtration role is to take away organics and leftover food before it decay and turn in to po4 and no3..

Biofiltration (beneficiary bacteria) consume carbon, phosphorus, ammonia, no2 and po4 and produce no3 and other elements.

Nothing actually take no3 that fast.
Algae, coral and microalgae(chaetos) consume phosphorus(po4) carbon and amino acids to grow. So you can think of it they are consuming no3 and po4. But, if you import of nutrients is faster than the export(what inhabitant consume) you will lose the battle of keeping nutrients at acceptable levels.
Putting a small ball of chaetos will not overcome overfeeding.
Keeping aquarium is all about balance. Decide your goal and system, decide the nutrient levels you want to maintain. Then design your export and import to achieve balance where the export system (micro algae mechanical filtration and biofiltration) take away what the beneficial inhabitant (coral and biofiltration) cannot..

this is in simple language btw, its bit more complicated than that.
 
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I have three softball sized clumps of Chaeto which have grown since I got them. I started the fuge before I added livestock - at the end of the cycle and I kept lights off in the DT for about a month.

Can’t do urchins because I have a puffer.

The current state of things is not that bad, to be honest. Nitrate levels have been the same for a month - they’re not rising. Neither is phosphate. I have diatoms and some light green algae. There are a couple of spots of Coraline. So I don’t think a crash is imminent.

Like I said in the original post, I think I’ve reached a steady state as far as nutrients go. I’m putting in X and Y is being consumed. X - Y results in the current nitrate and phosphate levels.

I can reduce X by feeding less. I can increase Y by improving the fuge efficiency, doing water changes or dosing carbon.

I’m not shooting for zero nutrients because that leads to problems and because LPS need some. If I were to dose, I would do it very carefully with a fraction of the recommended amounts.

But I won’t. I will start with water changes and improving the fuge.
 
svreef said:
I have three softball sized clumps of Chaeto which have grown since I got them. I started the fuge before I added livestock - at the end of the cycle and I kept lights off in the DT for about a month.

Can’t do urchins because I have a puffer.

The current state of things is not that bad, to be honest. Nitrate levels have been the same for a month - they’re not rising. Neither is phosphate. I have diatoms and some light green algae. There are a couple of spots of Coraline. So I don’t think a crash is imminent.

Like I said in the original post, I think I’ve reached a steady state as far as nutrients go. I’m putting in X and Y is being consumed. X - Y results in the current nitrate and phosphate levels.

I can reduce X by feeding less. I can increase Y by improving the fuge efficiency, doing water changes or dosing carbon.

I’m not shooting for zero nutrients because that leads to problems and because LPS need some. If I were to dose, I would do it very carefully with a fraction of the recommended amounts.

But I won’t. I will start with water changes and improving the fuge.
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Is your goal to have 40ppm no3 and 0.1ppm po4 as a steady state?
 
svreef said:
No, half that
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Got it. So 20ppm no3 and 0.05ppm po4?
My advice is to shot for 10ppm no3 if you want your po4 to be 0.05 or 0.08. But that's me.
As Bruce said coral will let you know.
As liz said, I personally worried the most inf your sysyem about algae outbreak. Do not take it lightly, it will suddenly bloom..
 
ofzakaria said:
Think of the no3 as the final product of nutrients decay.
The mechanical filtration role is to take away organics and leftover food before it decay and turn in to po4 and no3..

Biofiltration (beneficiary bacteria) consume carbon, phosphorus, ammonia, no2 and po4 and produce no3 and other elements.

Nothing actually take no3 that fast.
Algae, coral and microalgae(chaetos) consume phosphorus(po4) carbon and amino acids to grow. So you can think of it they are consuming no3 and po4. But, if you import of nutrients is faster than the export(what inhabitant consume) you will lose the battle of keeping nutrients at acceptable levels.
Putting a small ball of chaetos will not overcome overfeeding.
Keeping aquarium is all about balance. Decide your goal and system, decide the nutrient levels you want to maintain. Then design your export and import to achieve balance where the export system (micro algae mechanical filtration and biofiltration) take away what the beneficial inhabitant (coral and biofiltration) cannot..

this is in simple language btw, its bit more complicated than that.
Click to expand...

Ah; wires got crossed. I understand all that already, I'm just trying to understand how microbacter + skimmer removes nitrates, given what Chromis said above.
 
IOnceWasLegend said:
Ah; wires got crossed. I understand all that already, I'm just trying to understand how microbacter + skimmer removes nitrates, given what Chromis said above.
Click to expand...
Beneficial bacteria do its cycle and consume and break down nutrients in its organic forun(carbon and phosphorus) it will produce no3 and po4 in the proccess.
Skimmer take out organics(leftover food before it decay) that's all..
So when liz recommending the bacteria product, she is trying to boost the op biological filtration and speed it up to make it catch up with the nutrient import...thats all.
 
My original post was saying that I’ve been in the current nutrient state for a month, so I’m ready to take action to make improvements. I have nutrient stability. I don’t plan on doing anything drastic - just want to improve the nitrate and Phosphate numbers.
 
ofzakaria said:
Beneficial bacteria do its cycle and consume and break down nutrients in its organic forun(carbon and phosphorus) it will produce no3 and po4 in the proccess.
Skimmer take out organics(leftover food before it decay) that's all..
So when liz recommending the bacteria product, she is trying to boost the op biological filtration and speed it up to make it catch up with the nutrient import...thats all.
Click to expand...

Well I agree this tank probably needs to speed up nutrient export, but I actually was suggesting that adding bacteria will decrease nitrate if you run a skimmer*. The idea is the added bacteria consume nutrients, and then you skim the bacteria out (or maybe filter feeders eat the bacteria). The idea is similar to carbon dosing, except you utilize the carbon already in your system and add bacteria, instead of adding carbon to increase the bacteria count.
 
And...just to clarify, the bacteria will take NO3 and reduce it to N2 which is released in to the atmosphere as molecular nitrogen (gas).
 
Chromis said:
Well I agree this tank probably needs to speed up nutrient export, but I actually was suggesting that adding bacteria will decrease nitrate if you run a skimmer*. The idea is the added bacteria consume nutrients, and then you skim the bacteria out (or maybe filter feeders eat the bacteria). The idea is similar to carbon dosing, except you utilize the carbon already in your system and add bacteria, instead of adding carbon to increase the bacteria count.
Click to expand...
I’m pretty much always on board with adding more bacteria but I don’t know if it makes sense the way you’re describing it. The vast majority of nitrifying bacteria is not floating in the water column. They’re on the hard surfaces. If the amount of bacteria you’re adding from the botttle is enough to do more than what you have built up in your tank then you’ve probably got bigger problems.

I would like to admit that you’ve got arguably one of the best tanks in the club though so whatever you’re doing is working.

ofzakaria said:
Huh? I thought the nitrogen cycle is nh3 to no2 to no3.
Not no3 to no2...
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Not No2, N2. Nitrogen gas. I’ve read this too but iirc it takes place very slowly and in places where you have anaerobic bacteria growing
 
Wlachnit said:
Nitrifying bacteria: Take NH3 to NO2 to NO3
Denitrifying bacteria take NO3 to N2 (atmospheric nitrogen)
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I should add that the denitrifiers are anaerobic bacteria which is why RDSBs (real deep sand beds) were so popular years ago
Nitrfying abacteria are aerobic since they need molecular oxygen (O2).
 
Flagg37 said:
I’m pretty much always on board with adding more bacteria but I don’t know if it makes sense the way you’re describing it. The vast majority of nitrifying bacteria is not floating in the water column. They’re on the hard surfaces. If the amount of bacteria you’re adding from the botttle is enough to do more than what you have built up in your tank then you’ve probably got bigger problems.

I would like to admit that you’ve got arguably one of the best tanks in the club though so whatever you’re doing is working.


Not No2, N2. Nitrogen gas. I’ve read this too but iirc it takes place very slowly and in places where you have anaerobic bacteria growing
Click to expand...
Yes...it is slow. 10+ years ago, I ran a DSB in my fuge and it SEEMED to work well for a couple of years, but they end up not working well in the long run
 
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