Nitrate

[coachV]

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]

What are your nitrates currently at? and how old is the tank? is it newer?

 

[Luke_L]

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]

Red Sea test a burgundy red darker than the test. Was down for a while and just spiked right back up.

 

[coachV]

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.

 

[Luigi]

Please don't tell me yours are so low you need to dose it in your reef ...

I do and also dosing Po4 and No-Po-x, (DIY)
125 gallons, 50 lbs of Rock,
5 fish,10 gallons sump

 

[Dingets]

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]

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]

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]

The tank is old, but I Nuked everything 2 yrs ago soo
2 years old going on 3

 

[coachV]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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

 

[coachV]

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

Thank you very much for sharing.

 

[Rookie]

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]

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

 

[Andrew D]

Agreed, .25 is nothing. I wish I had .25....