On average, how many times a day does food drop into your tank?

[derek_SR]

In my case nitrate never moves one bit, and phosphate is consistently always rising (without some intervention). I don't dose anything besides triton core. Maybe I just feed phosphate heavy foods...

 

[Blaise006]

In my case nitrate never moves one bit, and phosphate is consistently always rising (without some intervention). I don't dose anything besides triton core. Maybe I just feed phosphate heavy foods...

Yea, my intention was just to highlight that the two can be very independent.

I assume my bacteria load is the cause of my phosphate depleting, because none of these systems have had water changes this year.

 

[L/B Block]

Just checked the other day. PO4 at .8 and nitrates staying around 7.
Would love to get PO4 around .3 would be nice but last time I used GFO caused some cyano issues. Don’t want to dose nopox not to sink my nitrates to 0 So I’ll leave at the moment

 

[RandyC]

As a 5-6/day feeder, my Nitrates are rock steady around 10p, but my phosphates are .13 and always climbing - which I try to manage with GFO. Not that I'm a huge believer in nutrient ratios, my natrate : phosphate seems really low compared to others, and it's odd that I struggle to keep phosphate down while Nitrates don't move. I'm considering just doing away with GFO and seeing how high the phosphates actually go...

Anyone else have experience with this? or thoughts?

Depends on what you’re feeding. I find pellets typically have a good amount of phosphates in it. Are you growing macro algae as well? I find that nitrates are more efficiently used than phosphates for macro algae like chaeto.

 

[L/B Block]

Depends on what you’re feeding. I find pellets typically have a good amount of phosphates in it. Are you growing macro algae as well? I find that nitrates are more efficiently used than phosphates for macro algae like chaeto.

I wonder if all macro algae are similar in their phosphate/nitrate uptake. Wonder if others are better in phosphate take up such as sea lettuce or Pom Pom.

 

[Darkxerox]

I test

I test my nutrients very frequently. My experience is that PO4 will move independently of no3. Some days no3 is not changed and po4 will increase by 50%, or any number of combinations inbetween. Here are my charts. Maybe I should check my correlation coefficient sometime to see if it’s significant.

Frag tank

View attachment 44257
Display: a bit more trendy than the frag tank
View attachment 44259

Were you hitting the upper limit of detection for that nitrate test? They might have trended closer together if the assay had more sensitivity at the 50+ ppm nitrate range.

 

[Blaise006]

Were you hitting the upper limit of detection for that nitrate test? They might have trended closer together if the assay had more sensitivity at the 50+ ppm nitrate range.

The display did trend closer, I noted that in my post. Meanwhile over the last week no3 has fallen and po4 has risen on the same tank.

My only point was that those two nutrients rise and fall independently.

 

[Arvin R]

Yummy!
more variety at once
and I would leave the flow on

Yea I always leave my flow on when feeding my tanks.

 

[derek_SR]

Just checked the other day. PO4 at .8 and nitrates staying around 7.
Would love to get PO4 around .3 would be nice but last time I used GFO caused some cyano issues. Don’t want to dose nopox not to sink my nitrates to 0 So I’ll leave at the moment

Interesting, sounds like you have a similar problem to me with even higher Phos. Looks like you feed pellets 5x per day? Anything else? I have also refrained from carbon dosing for the same reason...I guess this is why GFO is so ubiquitous.

Depends on what you’re feeding. I find pellets typically have a good amount of phosphates in it. Are you growing macro algae as well? I find that nitrates are more efficiently used than phosphates for macro algae like chaeto.

I grew Chaeto for a while but didn't really notice much of an impact on either nutrient, then for some reason it kinda fell apart and died. This has happened twice now - not sure what's killing my Chaeto. I had plenty of Iron this time, so that wasn't it.

 

[Darkxerox]

Interesting, sounds like you have a similar problem to me with even higher Phos. Looks like you feed pellets 5x per day? Anything else? I have also refrained from carbon dosing for the same reason...I guess this is why GFO is so ubiquitous.



I grew Chaeto for a while but didn't really notice much of an impact on either nutrient, then for some reason it kinda fell apart and died. This has happened twice now - not sure what's killing my Chaeto. I had plenty of Iron this time, so that wasn't it.

Have you used the PAR meter on your chaeto? Mine took off after I lowered mine and cranked it up to 100% to get like 120 PAR.

 

[derek_SR]

Have you used the PAR meter on your chaeto? Mine took off after I lowered mine and cranked it up to 100% to get like 120 PAR.

I haven't - but what do you mean lowered it? Like physically lowered the light closer to the chaeto? What light are you using?

 

[Darkxerox]

I haven't - but what do you mean lowered it? Like physically lowered the light closer to the chaeto? What light are you using?

Physically lowered the light to get less spill. I give the ball a spin when I change the skimmer cup. Using a Kessil H80 for the past 6 years, but there's a lot of cheaper and newer options like the Tunze one that can actually be submerged too. Would like to see if anyone here has used that one.

 

[RandyC]

I grew Chaeto for a while but didn't really notice much of an impact on either nutrient, then for some reason it kinda fell apart and died. This has happened twice now - not sure what's killing my Chaeto. I had plenty of Iron this time, so that wasn't it.

Could be another trace element that’s being used up by your tank. I dose chaetogro myself.

Physically lowered the light to get less spill. I give the ball a spin when I change the skimmer cup. Using a Kessil H80 for the past 6 years, but there's a lot of cheaper and newer options like the Tunze one that can actually be submerged too. Would like to see if anyone here has used that one.

I use a cheap 45W dimmable grow LED panel that’s running around 25-30W. It’s velcroed to the side, so it’s real close. I think last time I measured a lot time ago, chateo next tot the light was around 100 PAR.

 

[Coral reefer]

More par the better if you want it to grow ime. Def needs nitrates and iron(at some point which I don’t test for so hard for to say exactly what point)
I’ve seen lots of new tanks without nitrates yet try to grow chaeto and see it get light colored and die away

 

[L/B Block]

Interesting, sounds like you have a similar problem to me with even higher Phos. Looks like you feed pellets 5x per day? Anything else? I have also refrained from carbon dosing for the same reason...I guess this is why GFO is so ubiquitous.



I grew Chaeto for a while but didn't really notice much of an impact on either nutrient, then for some reason it kinda fell apart and died. This has happened twice now - not sure what's killing my Chaeto. I had plenty of Iron this time, so that wasn't it.

I actually stopped using pellets -
Ended up using the reef jerky by avast as it came with the auto feeder. And all the fish love it-with some dried mysis thrown in

Reef Jerky

Preservative-free Nutrition.Fish and Coral Mico-Feeding Perfected. Reef Jerky is a specialty blend of whole-animal plankton to appeal to frequent feeding, small-mouthed planktivores, such as anthias, wrasses, cardinalfish, dwarf angles, corals, and filter-feeding invertebrates requiring...

www.avastmarine.com

Been keeping the nitrates and po stable. The apex kept dumping out pellets in huge dumps driving my nitrates to above 30 and PO4 to 1.5-1.8.

 

[derek_SR]

Could be another trace element that’s being used up by your tank. I dose chaetogro myself.



I use a cheap 45W dimmable grow LED panel that’s running around 25-30W. It’s velcroed to the side, so it’s real close. I think last time I measured a lot time ago, chateo next tot the light was around 100 PAR.

That's pretty sweet! I was also using Chaetogro...still died on me. I was originally using an H80 the first time it died, and switched to the Tunze submersible light the 2nd time. It did last a lot longer and grow for quite a while on the 2nd attempt with the Chaetogro.

 

[Darkxerox]

That's pretty sweet! I was also using Chaetogro...still died on me. I was originally using an H80 the first time it died, and switched to the Tunze submersible light the 2nd time. It did last a lot longer and grow for quite a while on the 2nd attempt with the Chaetogro.

Oh nice, have you ever measured the Tunze par? Also was the H80 you had at full intensity on grow? Curious to see if it's the light intensity or nutrients here.

 

[derek_SR]

Oh nice, have you ever measured the Tunze par? Also was the H80 you had at full intensity on grow? Curious to see if it's the light intensity or nutrients here.

No, I do have a PAR meter I just never thought to measure it. I'll do so for both lights in the next couple of days and follow up with the results!

 

[RandyC]

Oh nice, have you ever measured the Tunze par? Also was the H80 you had at full intensity on grow? Curious to see if it's the light intensity or nutrients here.

I don’t think it has to be one or the other. I’ve had chaeto grow well in much less than 100 par. I’ve also had chateo die on me with a lot of light. I think it’s really system dependent. But I would venture to guess trace/nutrients hurts more people than less light when it comes to chaeto.

 

[Marcus H]

Yeah I agree it's some other nutrient issue that causes chaeto die off. I've had it grow well, then die, then restart with the same setup and it works fine.

Using an old H150 now that's 300 PAR just under the surface. That's about as hot as I imagine it can endure without tumbling. The top sometimes gets a little bleached out.