What are your nitrates?

[wolff809]

I am pretty new to salt water so I test once a week. Mine are always around 20 and that's with a small bio load and I keep mainly zoas and lps

[Big_Pun]

i test twice a week since my addition of bio pellets, my tank is at very low levels, but ive been feeding coral ver heavy to get them to bounce back and i keep a lil of everything , SPS, LPS, Softies. and all are doing well in my vlean system. as for feeding i use "fuel" for amino acids every other day and coral frenzy inbetween, all coral has started to color back up and sps shows good polyp extension on pieces that where browned out.

[Kristy]

I'm the designated tester in our household since Mike feigns colorblindness to get out of it. ;)

Our 210g has a VERY heavy bioload so we have to be diligent about our water changes. It creeps up to the 20 range at water change time and then goes down to about 10 when everything is good and clean. Our other two tanks tend to stay closer to 10.

[kkiel02]

I am also a non tester nowadays. When I first got in I tested alot but now I just get the same results over and over. Mine are under 10 last time I tested. The only things I would like to test for now are mag, cal and kh. Oh and I test the copper in my little qt.

[allan]

I stopped testing ammonia and trites a long time ago. Once you've cycled, IMO, those two will stay at zero unless something is added or dies. Even left over food, if not substantial, will be only noted as a small mini cycle as your bacteria grows to compensate.

Then I stopped testing for trates. They never seemed to go up.

But I've started to do water changes regularly, five to ten a few times a week. Most of the reason I do this is to syphon off cyano.

[tebstan]

I've been trying to lower my nitrates down to the 10 range and a few of my corals seem unhappy about the clean water. I have nitrates of 15 to 20, a very light bioload, no (nuisance) algae growing... but I have NPS and macro. Trying to reduce the nitrates caused more harm than good. :[

Anyone else keep NPS? What are the nitrates in successful NPS tanks?

[ballardjr2000]

My tnak just got done cycling so of course i would be a below 10 now give me awhile and lets see where i end up lol

[copperband]

My tank is now between 0-10 after adding macro and all soft corals seem happy.