Seems this is a popular topic lately and with BRSTV's episode on chaeto and refugium lighting I thought I would share my experience with low nitrates. About 45 days ago I switched over to the Kessil H380 and started growing chaeto like it was my job. Not knowing when I should prune it, I let it grow until it consumed the entire area in my sump. At the time I was still skimming and pulling out some real dark skimmate. I was also running GFO in a BRS reactor. My NO3 and PO4 were undetectable using the Red Sea kit and I thought that was good until a lot of my corals started losing color.
The color was fading slowly, zoas were peeking, still had decent PE on my acros so I thought things were OK for the most part. The tank had some small diatom looking patches but overall was looking pristine, no nuisance algae and the glass rarely developed a film that needed scraping. When the color loss became more noticeable in my LPS I decided that it must be the low NO3 in the system. So I tried feeding more, and more and more, until the point where I was feeding 1 cube of mysis and 1 cube of brine in the morning, Reef chili in the morning and when the lights when out. Red Sea's reef energy part A and B at 8mL daily. All this and the NO3 was still reading 0.
Recently I stopped skimming entirely, stopping running GFO and thought I would let the tank find the equilibrium on its own. Still with that feeding schedule above I couldn't get the NO3 to budge, at least to a point where I could register a reading on the test kit. Corals looking pastel, and no longer vibrant and rich in color, I thought I'd give the Sodium Nitrate a try. I couldn't bring myself to dosing stump remover into my system, despite the success of others, something about it made me weary.
I mixed up a solution today and dosed 6mL to the system. This may be anecdotal at this point, but zoas are opening, even those that were peeking for the last month and a half are laid open flat and big, there's good PE, and overall there is a noticeable difference in the colors. For those who dose or have dosed NO3 to their systems, have you noticed a quick response in the coral's color? The plan is to watch it a few days, continue testing and dose as needed to keep a steady balance at 5ppm. I'm thinking I'll see what the consumption looks like in another 24 hours and depending on what that looks like, either bring the skimmer back on line and/or increase my refugium lighting period back up the few hours I decreased it a while back.
Last, if anyone can explain the relationship between PO4 and NO3 in the system I think that would be helpful for me. I feel as though in the last 45 days or so I was chasing one or the other until I finally got fed up and took both the skimmer and GFO reactor offline and thought I would let it handle the levels on it's own. Would love to hear your thoughts.
Some details on my system:
Setup
==================
40g Breeder (mixed reef)
30g sump
Kessil AP700 (11" off the water, peaks at 30%)
SCA 65g rated skimmer
BRS mini GFO/Carbon reactor
Vectra M1
Marine Pure Block
Kessil H380 Magenta grow light
Water Params
==================
78 degrees
1.026
Ca 420ppm
Alk 9.0 dKh
Mg 1380
NO3 (now 5ppm)
PO4 .04-.05
The color was fading slowly, zoas were peeking, still had decent PE on my acros so I thought things were OK for the most part. The tank had some small diatom looking patches but overall was looking pristine, no nuisance algae and the glass rarely developed a film that needed scraping. When the color loss became more noticeable in my LPS I decided that it must be the low NO3 in the system. So I tried feeding more, and more and more, until the point where I was feeding 1 cube of mysis and 1 cube of brine in the morning, Reef chili in the morning and when the lights when out. Red Sea's reef energy part A and B at 8mL daily. All this and the NO3 was still reading 0.
Recently I stopped skimming entirely, stopping running GFO and thought I would let the tank find the equilibrium on its own. Still with that feeding schedule above I couldn't get the NO3 to budge, at least to a point where I could register a reading on the test kit. Corals looking pastel, and no longer vibrant and rich in color, I thought I'd give the Sodium Nitrate a try. I couldn't bring myself to dosing stump remover into my system, despite the success of others, something about it made me weary.
I mixed up a solution today and dosed 6mL to the system. This may be anecdotal at this point, but zoas are opening, even those that were peeking for the last month and a half are laid open flat and big, there's good PE, and overall there is a noticeable difference in the colors. For those who dose or have dosed NO3 to their systems, have you noticed a quick response in the coral's color? The plan is to watch it a few days, continue testing and dose as needed to keep a steady balance at 5ppm. I'm thinking I'll see what the consumption looks like in another 24 hours and depending on what that looks like, either bring the skimmer back on line and/or increase my refugium lighting period back up the few hours I decreased it a while back.
Last, if anyone can explain the relationship between PO4 and NO3 in the system I think that would be helpful for me. I feel as though in the last 45 days or so I was chasing one or the other until I finally got fed up and took both the skimmer and GFO reactor offline and thought I would let it handle the levels on it's own. Would love to hear your thoughts.
Some details on my system:
Setup
==================
40g Breeder (mixed reef)
30g sump
Kessil AP700 (11" off the water, peaks at 30%)
SCA 65g rated skimmer
BRS mini GFO/Carbon reactor
Vectra M1
Marine Pure Block
Kessil H380 Magenta grow light
Water Params
==================
78 degrees
1.026
Ca 420ppm
Alk 9.0 dKh
Mg 1380
NO3 (now 5ppm)
PO4 .04-.05