Improving SPS color in heavily stocked Reef

[RxMike]

I am keeping a heavily stocked 300 gallon SPS reef. My paramaters are decent but I cannot seem to get the coloration I want to achieve. I am striving for ULN however, I have to feed my fish daily. Other than doing frequent water changes how can I realistically get my nitrate down from 0.5 to close to zero as possible?

[GhostCon1]

Well, you have carbon dosing, algae scrubbers, refugiums with macro algae, remote deep sand beds, and I'm sure there is even more I'm not thinking of.

[RxMike]

Forgot to mention have a refugium with macro algae and I am still 0.5

[GhostCon1]

What skimmer are you running?

Need some more info

[sirreal63]

With nitrates that low you may not get deep dark colors but rather pale colors.

[Alex T.]

With nitrates that low you may not get deep dark colors but rather pale colors.

+1. My colors are best with nitrates around 5ppm. When I see them dropping, I either feed the fish more, skim more dry or start adding amino acids.

[kalan850]

have you thought about using biopellets? i have read alot of people are haveing good results.

[basser1]

With nitrates that low you may not get deep dark colors but rather pale colors.

+1. My colors are best with nitrates around 5ppm. When I see them dropping, I either feed the fish more, skim more dry or start adding amino acids.

I agree with the above as well.....

[Wrench]

Eliminate all the detritus in your system. In you sump, substrate, rockwork, all of it. Use filter socks to prevent it from coming back. Rinse any frozen food before feeding your system. The nicest SPS systems I've seen don't employ a lot of fancy stuff.

[MHG]

I agree that everything in my tank looks and grows the best with nitrates above zero and less than 5ppm.... I have tried the ULN route and keeping them low is easy. I have the problem of trying to keep them up even though I feed 10 times a day....

Any one of the carbon dosing methods will work fine. I tried biopellets but I prefer hi cap GFO and prodibio Biodigest/bioptim (otherwise known as bioclean) because there is nothing to maintain. Just dose as directed. I can do a full year on my 60 gallon for about 55 bucks a year... And the odd algae issues that you get with heavy feeding go away.....

It works too good on my tank so I only dose about once every 6 weeks now rather than every 2 weeks...