acceptable range of Nitrate for a reef tank

[tigershark]

Just been very curious............

I've been keeping coral for 1.5 years from now... seen diferrently people have diferent "acceptable" nitrate for their reeftank. Some LFS even claim that nitrate is fine, as long as your ammonia & nitrite is undetectable, it would be fine....

personally, i felt that mainaining nitrate level below 40ppm is good enough for a ferr only tank. Anything below that would require masive water change very frequently. I've ever tried to maintain 20ppm of nitrate in my tank but i need to change 20% water every 10 days! too ex for me to do so....

what is your choice?

[Siput]

For a FOWLR set-up, what is the tolerable level of nitrates to aim for?

[arcanehacker]

by tolerable you mean? .. I've seen 100ppm in my tank before and still the fishes, mushrooms and jewel corals survived and opened fully. Not my intention though.. never checked the levels for like few weeks. When I finally check I was shocked .. .. quickly did serious water change at least 30% every few days..

So again.. tolerable as in? Few weeks? Few months? Of course mushcrooms, fishes and jewels corals can still live with 100ppm for a few weeks/months (maybe even longer) but can't say the same about LPS & SPS though...

[Asfur]

I know this isn't right, but my experience is when i keep FO tank with many delicate fish such as Asfur, Majestic and Emperor Angel, Auriga and Racoon Butterflies along with about 10 more small to medium fish housed in the same tank (about 900 lt tank), the nitrate is almost 100 ppm with no injury result or any sign of stressed.

[Siput]

Many thanks for the advice...just needed to know where the safety boundaries are for FO tanks...of course ideal is way below the 100 ppm mark....

[tineng]

I did a test on my tap water...the Nitrate is about 20ppm. My tank is way above the 40ppm mark....

I have a clown, blue tang, firefish, royal gamma, scooter beanie and Emprorer...they seems to be doing fine without much stress....

[RockyBoy]

PUB water supplies have nitrate level less than 15ppm

PUB Water Parameters

[joachimsim]

If what you say is true RockyBoy..then whenever we test for Ntirate with our average test kits..and say get 10ppm Nitrate..that actually means a lot more ?? in actual fact?

[jc85]

If what you say is true RockyBoy..then whenever we test for Ntirate with our average test kits..and say get 10ppm Nitrate..that actually means a lot more ?? in actual fact?

According to the website, 15 is the max for tap water.

Cheers

JC

[chris21]

Nitrate/Po4 do any harm to fish then? it seems with all those resulted to dieases to delicate fishes like blue tang and angels(expensive species)

TRUE?

Or not, then why?

[RockyBoy]

Nitrates/po4 feeds the cyno and algae.

[Achilles Tang]

For reef tanks, aim for undetectable nitrates for long term success of your livestock, esp the inverts & corals.

For FOWLR tanks, those fishes can tolerate a bit of nitrates.

[giantbicycle]

Oh..gosh..i checked my tank today ..and it is 100 .... quickly do a water change and now it is at 50..but why my LS in the tank still doing fine at 100 ???

[tigershark]

Oh..gosh..i checked my tank today ..and it is 100 .... quickly do a water change and now it is at 50..but why my LS in the tank still doing fine at 100 ???

ur LS does not die immediately if the water quality is poor.....usually, your coral will show signs where it does'nt expand as big as it should be. If you maintain the NO3 above 100ppm... some of the sensative coral will slowly die after some time(eg elegant, goniopora), then follow by other less sensetive..... last survivors should be those polyps, leather & mushroom, but not for too long either, maybe 2~3 month...... finally, your tank will left with some glass anemonie, just like what happen in Yishun Aquastar display tank

[Siput]

Read from a marine book that even for FOWLR, the ideal nitrate reading shld be below 50 ppm...

[Cookiemunster]

My 3ft fish only tank has nitrate of 80ppm. No coral can survive long in it(max 1 month) except for the hardier mushrooms.

My 4ft mixed reef tank has 0.5ppm (undetectable). And my corals flourish and grow happily.

[ReDDeviLs]

i did a newbie mistake..never measure my no3 for mths..and its way very high..above 100ppm..

my corals all start to die..

now it have been brought down to about 10-20ppm..

all very nice opening up.

by the way..i went to this pasir ris farm..a new shop..

the person told me my no3 is about 10-20 is ok..ideal is 20-40ppm when he trying to sell me an anemone..

i was ...

is that true?! i doubt so.

[jellyfish]

diferrent plp having diferrent theory... some saying anything below 60ppm is fine... some claiming that anything above 20ppm is dangerous.... For me, 40~60ppm is actually the best zone ato maintain. It is better not to exceed 60ppm for safety reason and for cost effectivenesss reason... maintaining nitrate around 40ppm is the best..... except problem with algea...

[ReDDeviLs]

how about long term wise? will 40ppm kill the corals?

how about the no3 level in the sea that consist of sps and lps?

[tineng]

i read somewhere the germans believe that undectable Nitrate as the key to keeping SPS....they are able to keep good looking SPS with a lower light requirement.....

but then lower light requirement still means MH.....250w instead of 400w...

[RAV-65]

Used to have a 2 feet tank with nitrates dat is unchartable..... the fishes still survive.... susequently, now my 3 feet tank has nitrates around 5ppm.... mortality is down, the fishes and corals are much healthier....

For those who have problems with their nitrates, try using AZ-No3, even some articles on RC also recommend it.... been trying to use it to get my nitrates down from 5 to 0ppm....

Vincent Ho