• Coral Reef Shop
  • Ontario Agra
  • Under The Sea
  • Niagara Fire Corals

Nitrate

coachV

Member
Joined
Feb 19, 2021
Messages
100
I have had conversations with too many reefers to list here about this topic..... I have implemented MANY great suggestions like: Water changes, biopellets, NOPOX, nitra-guard bio cubes from orca lab, ran the tank without fish for 12 weeks ( for parasites reasons but still ), starved the system and my poor fish.... spot feeding my corals, watch my feedings in genral...... change my filter socks every 3 days etc... Maybe I just need more time to get them down but If anyone want to share their nitrate experience with me.... Please don't tell me yours are so low you need to dose it in your reef ... you'll push me over the edge lol.
the sytem is a 125 with about 80 gl of sump water. I upgraded my skimmer to a deltec.... I'll get there but wow.... my biggest challege since the system finished it's nitrite cycle in March 2020...
 

Will Penfold

Member
Joined
Feb 22, 2021
Messages
64
What are your nitrates currently at? and how old is the tank? is it newer?
 
Last edited:

Luke_L

Founder/Admin
Staff member
Joined
Feb 12, 2021
Messages
389
Hey coach what's your Source water like I wonder if there's any chance your source water is not helping your nitrate situation
 

coachV

Member
Joined
Feb 19, 2021
Messages
100
Red Sea test a burgundy red darker than the test. Was down for a while and just spiked right back up.
 

coachV

Member
Joined
Feb 19, 2021
Messages
100
I tested it at first and it was perfect but I should definitely look into that. The ATO alone puts a few gallons a day.
 
D

Dingets

Guest
Is it 50lbs of live rock? I also feel you don’t have enough of it. The more rock the more surface area for beneficial bacteria.
 

Luigi

Moderator
Joined
Feb 19, 2021
Messages
337
Is it 50lbs of live rock? I also feel you don’t have enough of it. The more rock the more surface area for beneficial bacteria.
Yes you are right,
Eventhogh small amount of rock I have great flow through them, and only few fish ,so those rocks are enough to do the job at removing no3
 

Rookie

Active member
Joined
Feb 20, 2021
Messages
136
How old is the tank? I always had low to medium nitrate levels, my tank just recently leveled out after a few years and many moves to its location
 

Luigi

Moderator
Joined
Feb 19, 2021
Messages
337
The tank is old, but I Nuked everything 2 yrs ago soo
2 years old going on 3
 

coachV

Member
Joined
Feb 19, 2021
Messages
100
How old is the tank? I always had low to medium nitrate levels, my tank just recently leveled out after a few years and many moves to its location
13 months old. I’m thinking it could be age. All started with dry rocks. I was recently watching a BRS video where they were saying they would never do that again because of that exact reason. It’s an opinion for sure.
 

Luigi

Moderator
Joined
Feb 19, 2021
Messages
337
Each one has its own opinion, my rocks were 16 years old from the original 90 gallons, so I think that were saturated with everything,
If ever happen to reach that point again, I will nuke them again, I was thinking to run the tank fallow but that would have taken a whole year before nitrates and phosphate would have reached a decent level
 

Cliff

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Feb 19, 2021
Messages
156
I tried everything to control my nitrates and they were always super high. Then I purchased a 40 gallon long refugium and I made a horizontal algae turf scrubber. Now my nitrates are whatever I want them to be. If I want them to go up a bit I just don’t harvest algae. If I need them to drop I just take a couple of Ziploc bags out of the refugium and I can literally watch the nitrates drop. I think what really helped is the grow lights. They grow algae like you wouldn’t believe. And they’re LEDs so they’re pretty cheap to run
 

coachV

Member
Joined
Feb 19, 2021
Messages
100
Cliff do you have a picture of that 40 gal scrubber? I had one in the past snd it wasn’t doing anything for me ( that I could think of) but it wasn’t even close to be that big.
 

Cliff

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Feb 19, 2021
Messages
156
Here is my system. 40 gallon fuge. The ats is just a 4” trough 48” long that the water flows down and goes into the fuge
 

Attachments

  • 2F3A4EB1-7249-42F9-814D-FF93AA98F06B.jpeg
    2F3A4EB1-7249-42F9-814D-FF93AA98F06B.jpeg
    2.5 MB · Views: 7
  • 1849DD7A-CE7D-4B0B-B263-C23E6262A5BC.jpeg
    1849DD7A-CE7D-4B0B-B263-C23E6262A5BC.jpeg
    1.4 MB · Views: 7

Rookie

Active member
Joined
Feb 20, 2021
Messages
136
On the subject of nitrates, my tank is creeping up, roughly reading .25 with the salifert kit I'm using. Nitrates undetectable between 2 kits

Covid would not make it fun to source components to add a fuse, alternatives?
 

Luigi

Moderator
Joined
Feb 19, 2021
Messages
337
Water change to reduce temporarily, then see if you can manage to bring it down
But 0.25 it's not a issue,
The issue would be 25
 
Top