What are Nitrate & Phosphate?
Nitrate comes from any organic waste in your tank, which has broken down from ammonia.
Phosphate also comes from waste.
Corals feed on nitrate, so we need some in the water column to keep them happy.
Corals need some phosphates to survive, but too many and they will stop growing. Nitrate or phosphate that is too low or too high can also lead to unwanted algaes and coral death.
Problem Solving Nutrients
When we say we want to keep nitrate balanced with phosphate, we want our measured value to be roughly 100 times higher. So if we have a nitrate reading of 10, phosphate should be 0.1. If our nitrate reading is 8, then balanced phosphate would be 0.08.
If nutrients are too low:
If our nitrate and phosphate values are too low, or out of balance, we may start to see some forms of algae.
To bring nitrate and phosphate up, try feeding the fish more often, dosing coral food, or adding more fish. If this doesn't work, we may need to start dosing nitrate or phosphate. We can also dose these individually if you have one reading that is high, and one that is low. For example, if nitrate is 20, and phosphate is 0.01, we can dose phosphate to bring it up to be in line with our nitrate.
You can do this using the same principle as KH and Calcium. Once you reach your desired levels, don’t stop dosing - but try and halve the dose - try and find a daily dose that maintains your levels.
If nutrients are too high:
If both nitrate and phosphate are high:
Check your skimmer is working correctly. If you can run the water level higher, the skimmer will pull out more waste. Try adjusting it so that the cup needs emptying twice a week, and see if this makes a difference.
Weekly 10-20% water changes will also help to bring nutrients down, as well as feeding your fish less, and using less coral food.
We can also try something called carbon dosing - adding a product like Red Sea NO3PO4-X (NOPOX) or Modern Reef C+, which will feed the bacteria in your tank which break down the nutrients. It’s important to dose this at the rate reccomended on the bottle, and halve the dose once we have either nitrate or phosphate in range.
If just phosphate is high
Using a phosphate remover will do the trick. D-D RowaPhos or Nyos Phosi-ex will bring it down. This wants to be changed every time the phosphate stops falling. These work best in a reactor - we like the Nyos Torq 1.0 & dock.
If just nitrate is high:
Check your skimmer is working correctly. If you can run the water level higher, the skimmer will pull out more waste. Try adjusting it so that the cup needs emptying twice a week, and see if this makes a difference.
Weekly 10-20% water changes will also help to bring nutrients down, as well as feeding your fish less, and using less coral food.
We can also try something called carbon dosing - adding a product like Red Sea NO3PO4-X (NOPOX) or Modern Reef C+, which will feed the bacteria in your tank which break down the nutrients. It’s important to dose this at the rate recommended on the bottle, and halve the dose once we have either nitrate or phosphate in range.