Has Bacto Balance ever reduced NO3 in your tank?

[EliMelly]

I am way too new to make an educated guess. What was your water charge schedule?

I can’t imagine lower nitrates at 5 causing a crash unless it dropped very fast!

 

[Pod_01]

I wonder what caused my slow crash more. My AI primes melting or my nitrates being <5. Probably both

Unlikely it was the NO3 < 5. I been in that range and even below 1 for 4+ years.

During that time I had some of the best corals.

From my experience it is something else, like unstable PO4 or PO4 < 0.03. Too much coral food can be detrimental long term as well. Alk swings can cause issues but these are quick etc…

 

[rishma]

So does it lower phosphates?

I find it does lower phosphates. I have carbon dosed a long time and found other carbon sources to be very aggressive at nitrate reduction and less aggressive at phosphate reduction, but still useful. With other carbon dosing methods I would often hit zero nitrate with phosphate still higher than where I want it.

What I like about NP Bacto balance is I am able to keep phosphate stable and the downward drift in nitrate is less pronounced than with other carbon sources. Nitrate still goes down, but more slowly than with say NoPox.

I use NP BB starting with my phosphates and nitrates in the range I want them. I don’t use NP BB specifically to lower either, just to maintain. Last week my nitrate and phosphate both drifted to bottom of my target range so I reduced my dose and retested tonight. The numbers were stable from last week, no longer drifting down.

 

[sixty_reefer]

I remember speaking with Hans a few years back regarding BB, if I remember correctly this was designed to give coral early forms of phosphorus and nitrogen that coral can assimilate more easily wile keeping pollutants like nitrate and phosphate steady.
I believe he mentioned that it wasn’t designed to lower nutrient per say, there is other aspects in a reef tank that have those abilities hence the need to keep a eye for those and use the other products to regulate the availability of pollutants like Nitrate and phosphate.
I believe he recommended using those other products to lower or upper the Nitrate and phosphate to a desired residual and once that is achieved implement BB to the reef.

He hasn’t mentioned the dosage in relation to the maturity of the tank but I suspect is more the relation and complexity of dosing early forms of nitrogen, a more mature biological filter can handle nitrogen better than a fairly new tank with a young biological filter.
As whats not used by the coral will be transformed into organic forms of nitrogen and removed from the tank via protein skimming.
Hence the need of a more mature biological filter to handle larger doses.

 

[Slocke]

Unlikely it was the NO3 < 5. I been in that range and even below 1 for 4+ years.

During that time I had some of the best corals.

From my experience it is something else, like unstable PO4 or PO4 < 0.03. Too much coral food can be detrimental long term as well. Alk swings can cause issues but these are quick etc…

I think it might have been just because it was in the 30s for most of the tanks life and then I suddenly reduced it to very low. Also my zoas and other dirty corals died while my SPS did fine

 

[EliMelly]

I think it might have been just because it was in the 30s for most of the tanks life and then I suddenly reduced it to very low. Also my zoas and other dirty corals died while my SPS did fine

Oh how quick was it? Yea I wonder if low nutrients would affect softies

 

[Slocke]

Oh how quick was it? Yea I wonder if low nutrients would affect softies

Months. Not that quick

 

[EliMelly]

I don’t think that would do it to my knowledge.

Months. Not that quick