Nitrate Update

My nitrate measured well below 0.2 mg/L tonight. The lowest my Salifert kit will test is 0.2. A clear sample would mean 0 mg/L. I was able to detect a very slight amount of pink. It was barely perceptible.

After posting about my rapid nitrate reduction on the 3reef forum and reading the responses I became a little worried that the 6500K bulbs would encourage too much algae growth in the tank. I decided to reduce the "on time" of these bulbs from 9 hours/day to 5. I'll keep measuring the nitrate level and observing the effect of the reduced light on the small amount of algae in the tank and my corals. The Xenia is pulsing extremely rapidly, even at night. I'm concerned it will slow down once the amount of light is reduced. That may not be a bad thing because it is spreading quite rapidly and I'm afraid it may some day want to take over the tank.

I did some aquascaping when I added my dead piece of live rock back into the tank. One of the Xenia colonies got moved a bit. I also created a flat ledge that I moved my open brain coral to that is about mid height in the tank. The open brain hasn't opened completely yet. It expands slightly in the morning but that's it. Now that the nitrate level is down I'm not sure what else to try so I decided to move it higher in the tank where it can get more light. Hopefully, this helps.