Low nutrients

[DTz]

Hi guys . My tank is a 9x2.5x2,5 450 gallon sps dominated tank. I have around 40 small colony acropora and some mixture of lps. 40+ fishes where 12 are tangs.

Feeding schedule
10 am 2 cube mysis
Dose 15 ml Red Sea ab+
From 12pm my Neptune auto feeder will disperse 1 round of pellets every 2 hours til 6 pm
6 pm 1 cube of mysis and 1 cube of reef frenzy
Lights off I’ll feed 2 teaspoons of reef roid
I have nori sheets available from lights on to lights off. Go thru 3-4 big pieces a day

I would consider that as heavy feeding. But I’m still getting rather low no3 3.5 and po4 0.02 according to my hanna checker.

Equipments
2 filter roller . 1 clarisea 5k 1 reef factory L size
skimmer reef octopus sss 6000 int
Algae turf scrubber

I do have a little green algae on the rocks and a little bubble algae.

Everybody I speak to locally is surprised by my numbers despite feeding so much. Anyone know if it’s normal or are there any issues? Trying hard to raise the no3 to 10

 

[Dburr1014]

You can take 1 or both the rollers offline and see if they improve.

 

[CoralNerd]

You might consider protein skimming for less hours. For po4 try some Spirulina powder.

 

[VintageReefer]

You run an algae scrubber but don’t understand why your nitrates and phosphate are low?

Why do you want them raised? Do you actually have problems, or do you just think they should be higher?

Your scrubber is literally a tunable filter directly connected to those numbers. It’s the only item in your equipment that directly consumes/reduces nitrates and phosphates. If you want the numbers to go up, decrease the scrubbers led time period by 30 minutes. Wait a few days. Retest. And continue reducing until your numbers increase to the level you want.

How many hours per day do you have the scrubber leds running ?

 

[Solo McReefer]

"For some reason my Lambo can only get to 185 when I am putting regular gas in it.

Should I try putting premium in, instead?"

Is this post a humble brag? Seems trollish to me

 

[ShakeyGizzard]

Then algae in the tank is also consuming the nutrients

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Hi guys . My tank is a 9x2.5x2,5 450 gallon sps dominated tank. I have around 40 small colony acropora and some mixture of lps. 40+ fishes where 12 are tangs.

Feeding schedule
10 am 2 cube mysis
Dose 15 ml Red Sea ab+
From 12pm my Neptune auto feeder will disperse 1 round of pellets every 2 hours til 6 pm
6 pm 1 cube of mysis and 1 cube of reef frenzy
Lights off I’ll feed 2 teaspoons of reef roid
I have nori sheets available from lights on to lights off. Go thru 3-4 big pieces a day

I would consider that as heavy feeding. But I’m still getting rather low no3 3.5 and po4 0.02 according to my hanna checker.

Equipments
2 filter roller . 1 clarisea 5k 1 reef factory L size
skimmer reef octopus sss 6000 int
Algae turf scrubber

I do have a little green algae on the rocks and a little bubble algae.

Everybody I speak to locally is surprised by my numbers despite feeding so much. Anyone know if it’s normal or are there any issues? Trying hard to raise the no3 to 10

My guess is to skim less in your tank

 

[DanyL]

Like already been mentioned - scrubbers can be quite an aggressive nutrient export.

What I don’t get is why do you want your nutrients any higher? These are perfect numbers for an SPS dominated tank.

 

[Sumbub]

If your corals and tank looks good/great, best to keep doing what you're doing. Don't chase numbers. Observe your tank.

 

[VintageReefer]

Skimmers really don’t remove nitrate or phosphate. They remove things that turn into nitrates and phosphates, so they contribute towards preventing these things from increasing, but they don’t really lower nitrate or phosphate. I recall an analytical study on skimmate and it was only around 1-2% phosphates

Your scrubber however directly removes nitrate and phosphate from the water, and bound phosphates from your rock and sand. the numbers your tank has are ideal parameters.

Increasing your numbers likely will have unwanted outcomes. What do you hope to achieve from jumping from 3.5 nitrate to 10?

 

[Solo McReefer]

What do you hope to achieve from jumping from 3.5 nitrate to 10?

As someone who started in 1992

This sounds as absurd as, "I need to get my pH down to 7.8. How much dry ice should I put in my tank if my pH is 8.3?"

"And what kind of pasta should I wear on my head when I do it?"

 

[djf91]

No reason to try to raise nutrients. Especially when feeding that much.

I don’t buy into the higher nutrients argument.

What do your SPS look like?

 

[Troylee]

Get rid of the rollers and turf scrubber lol.. you got 3 pieces of equipment competing with the skimmer.. the roller “S” alone strip the water before the bacteria can strip it down and complete the cycle it needs to feed your tank. I’d imagine all your corals are starving.