Brain Fried and confused Question about Nitrate + Phosphates and keeping SPS

Dipan00

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#1
So I have always understood and read nitrates bad and phosphates bad. I have had issues with SPS colors and paling. Am I starving my SPS? Trying to keep my water super clean Nitrates read 0 and so do phosphates. I do have hair algae starting to creep up which I am trying to get a handle of. I have a sump growing chaeto and am hoping it out competes the hair algae. Now the thing what I am beyond confused about. I have been reading different threads with people who keep their nitrates above 10 and below 50 ppm and having great success with sps and coloration without any hair algae issues. How does that work? I always thought and understood that high nitrates were reasons for nuisance algae problems. After talking to someone they mentioned my tank might be too clean hence pale coloration of sps. Is that true? If so how do I get nitrates up a bit without full blown hair algae issues? What are you SPS keepers keeping your nitrates at? By the way I am skimming, have about a 20g section for chaeto in my sump, and running GFO and Carbon to keep water as clean as possible with about a 15g per week water change in a 100g tank with 40g sump/fuge.
 
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#2
So I have always understood and read nitrates bad and phosphates bad. I have had issues with SPS colors and paling. Am I starving my SPS? Trying to keep my water super clean Nitrates read 0 and so do phosphates. I do have hair algae starting to creep up which I am trying to get a handle of. I have a sump growing chaeto and am hoping it out competes the hair algae. Now the thing what I am beyond confused about. I have been reading different threads with people who keep their nitrates above 10 and below 50 ppm and having great success with sps and coloration without any hair algae issues. How does that work? I always thought and understood that high nitrates were reasons for nuisance algae problems. After talking to someone they mentioned my tank might be too clean hence pale coloration of sps. Is that true? If so how do I get nitrates up a bit without full blown hair algae issues? What are you SPS keepers keeping your nitrates at? By the way I am skimming, have about a 20g section for chaeto in my sump, and running GFO and Carbon to keep water as clean as possible with about a 15g per week water change in a 100g tank with 40g sump/fuge.
Everyone
 

five.five-six

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#3
no need to use GFO unless you are having a problem with algae IMO. you could always just feed your fish more to get the nitrites and phosphates up.
 

Dipan00

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#4
What about hair algae issues that come with raising nitrate and phosphate?
 
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#5
you need some no3 and po4, or the sticks will pale and starve

zeros are a common problem nowdays lols, we had zeros during months 0 - 7. at month 8 we started dosing no3 on an automatic doser, we shoot for 3ppm.
 
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#6
you need some no3 and po4, or the sticks will pale and starve

zeros are a common problem nowdays lols, we had zeros during months 0 - 7. at month 8 we started dosing no3 on an automatic doser, we shoot for 3ppm.
How much are you having to add per day and how big is your tank? To keep your Nitrates at 3ppm? Also how heavy is your fish load. Thanks.
 

Dipan00

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Wow I didnt realize people were still responding to this thread. So something strange has happened since this last post. I started nitrate dosing to get my levels up. At some point my test kit started giving me false readings until I had my water sent in to be tested. Test came back and my Nitrates came back crazy high. Test said 550.4 mg/l Nitrates and PO4 reading 0.06. Here's the crazy part my sps are growing and colors are holding even with nitrates over 500. I have been vinegar dosing to slowly bring them down to under 50 but my test only goes to 100 so I have sent my water in again for a full analysis to see where things are at. But SPS have been in my tank for 4 months now growing and encrusting. Full tank shots attached excited to see how thing look when nitrates are under between 10-20ppm.
 

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dontavo27

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But if everything is doing great, and encrusting, why bother bringing nitrates down? Just cut back on nitrate dosing, and stop dosing vinegar. I recently went skimmerless, took my biopellet reactor offline, and threw some cheato in the sump, and boy, my coral including sps look amazing. Just sticking to 10% water change weekly, and not over feeding.
 

Dipan00

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#16
Once my tests came back I immediay stopped dosing nitrates. I also dont do any water changes. I am running my skimmer and also have chaeto. As far as bringing them down I feel thing may look better as far as color goes if maybe a bit lower. Closer to 20-50 ppm is my goal. I will update what my parameters are once my ICP test comes back hopefully sometime this week.
 

Dipan00

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Just an update. Got my ICP test back and its showing my Nitrates are at 443ppm and PO4 at 0.02. Going to start doing water changes to bring that # down. Crazy that SPS have not browned out or died.
 
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#18
That is amazing your acros didn’t die. If you want to bring nitrates up don’t dose. Feeding your fish more can take care of that for you.
 

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