Nitrate is the main nitrogenous compound utilized by primary producers in the ocean; it is a major nutrient required for photosynthesis .

I think the big misconception comes from the idea that years ago many of the best SPS reef tanks ,arguably better than today, were known to have undetectable nitrates. However, what people do not realize is that older test kits that were often not geared towards aquariums anyway, could not accurately test low levels or low detection of these nutrients. Thus, 0 for them was likely 10 to 15 pp nitrates.

Oooh! I’m currently in a low nitrate high phosphate situation. Introduced a phos reactor and increased feeding to try and compensate. Joys of a new reef.

Great Video! My 160g is a year old with no nutrients, just battled cyano, chemi pure cleaned it and came back but changed water flow and beat it, had brown diatom phase as well which killed a lot of my coraline. My alk is 11, mag high at 1550 and 483 on calcium. I tried birds nest, chalice and now montipora and they bleach out but leather and mushrooms, gsp and bubble lps doing well. Next is to feed more food, amino acid, less light for my calerpa, stop skimming , delay water changes more and be lazy for a bit....

It’s pretty simple. Nuisance algae and bacteria are more simple life forms and hence are more durable; they need less diversity of energy sources to survive. They update the nutrients faster than the coral and other life forms that are more complex so at some point you have to have enough successful, higher life forms to starve out the nuisance life forms. It’s also a different concept if you don’t do a full fledged reef but more just live rock and fish; yes, in that type of tank you can have a more low nutrient tank and if you only feed what is used, you can minimize the nuisance stuff. Lighting is also a factor.

You're living my dream job guys!

Great rock scape. Good catch on the nutrients. Get your customers to feed a little bit more. Like 25% more and then retest after a week or so.

I like that you are making videos now

Thank you guys this has helped me tremendously! I have a clean tank I'm testing .o25 on phosphate and .o on Nitrate for a while now, definitely dealing with a little brown diatoms.

Agreed. The Red Sea test kits have been very reliable for me and use it for Ammonia Nitrate Nitrite regularly and ULR Hannah for PO4 now. My personal findings concur with your own. Corals looking light and losing color... P04 and Nitrates out of balance and very low.

Hey Tommy I came from Paul’s vids i think it’s really cool how much you know and when I’m older wanna become a marine biologist. Love your vids😁

Good video very informative.

Are there supplements to keep these parameters for phosphate and nitrate ? Confused Gr8 video, thx

Great video!

Really good video - looking forward to an update!

Hi tommy and may I ask what is a good size beginner tank and what type of corals

Fantastic video thank you guys

thank you so much!

Great information. Can't wait to see an update on that tank. I'd be interested in hearing the process you followed along the way not just a before and after. Also, how you plan to stabilize the nutrient levels. There are a lot of us fighting this battle of ultra low nitrate\phosphate. I've been thinking it was lighting but, I'm leaning more towards too low of nutrients now. I probably made the situation worse by increasing lighting. That just requires more nutrients which just aren't available. I've been dosing NeoNitro and NeoPhos for a couple of months but, can't keep it stable. Starting to figure out how much to dose by testing a couple times a week. I can dose up to 2ppm nitrates and .03 phosphates and within a couple of days, its back to zero. Thanks guys!

My water source is pretty bad. To the point my rodi doesn’t run to great I use up anion resin really fast too, like half my canister is depleted after maybe 50 gallons are produced. I checked the incoming tds and they’re well over 500 and I’m sure that’s most of my problem. I think the quality of my source water is just too poor to not need extra equipment to combat my particular set of problems. Which was actually one reason I left the hobby years ago but now i been back my tank itself is just over a year old. I didn’t add my first fish till around July of last year. I live over an hour from the nearest sw fish store so it’s not easy to get new inhabitants equipment and supplies bulk reef supply has been a great supplier for me when it comes to equipment and supplies. When I pick fish and coral I’m very particular about what I want and get so mail order fish and coral are not for me. Which has made my tank a 36gal bow front with a sump that holds around 10gal pretty much a wasteland with too little bio load to support a healthy bacteria colony that would combat the nuisance algae I have. I’m trying to take things slow and as natural as possible and I don’t mind the hair algae or having to “prune it back” every now and then. Lol my clown started hosting and using a patch of it as a safe place to sleep. So funny to walk in and see it all tangled up in the hair not moving then all the sudden it wakes up, DINNER TIME!! Lol

Good video guys. I got the same problem, 0 N and P and pale unhappy corals. I dose an amino/liquid coral food which has brought back some previously lost pigments but the colours are still not solid. My fuge is down to 2 hours of light a day and skimmer only on 8 hours and still can’t get levels up so I guess I might have to dose..

I've got a 40 gallon cube AIO and my nutrients have been zero for awhile despite removing GFO, and turning off skimmer. Just using filter floss and some marine pur media. I have also added 4 (total of 9 fish) fish in hopes of increasing the bioload. I dont have any algae but am battling pretty bad dinos due to low nutrients. What explains low nutrients without trying?

Good video, especially for the the new to the hobby aquarist. However, the Red Sea kits arent the best-not by far. They are good-but def. not the best. There are other things in addition to NO3-PO4 levels that are equally important when it comes to keeping corals. Especially SPS varieties. This tank is virtually all LPS.

how can i raise my nitrates and phosphates

I have 30 nitrate and 0 phosphate. Any advice on how to get my ratio closer without causing an imbalance?

What is the best way to safely raise nitrate and phosphate?

I’m 0 in nitrates and 0 in phosphate my tank completely bottomed out. It’s only a 15 g. Idk wtf happened 😩

Utter chaos pink? They’re orange.

Find it amusing that some smuck has you servicing this tiny ass tank.🤣

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No Hanna testers lads 🤣