Help : Reducing Nitrates

Triton

Triton

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Hey all,

Firstly happy new year to all! Hope u all had a good one :)

I need some help reducing my Nitrates..
I have been testing my nitrates every week for 3 weeks now and they are so high above 16ppm.. (Using the Red Sea Nitrate Pro Test Kit)
After the first week of testing and got such a high reading i went and bought the Red sea NO3:PO4-X, and started dosing 20ml a day for about a week and a half and nitrates still high :( all that was left was this clear snotty looking stuff in my sump (Clogging my carbon and PO4 reactor)??

How can i reduce my nitrates? :eek:
​
 
Water change only and best option. Don't add stuff like Red red it'll just cause more issues with spikes. Then you need to look at:

What filtration are you running, Liverock, DSB, other ?? How old is your system?

NO3 is the final step in the cycle process, so you must have either a lot of kak in the gravel etc causing NO3 or you are adding it to the system in food etc.

My suggestion, clean and Gravel. large water change. Make sure your skimmer is big enough, feed much less for 2 weeks and see if there is an improvement.

Is you RO water good?
Is your tank overloaded with too many fish?

Other issues could be issues with the denitrification, DSB or other method not working.
 
Express Reef said:
Red sea No3:pO4 - x is carbon dosing.... its a bacteria bloom... and to dose 20ml is alot in fact.
Click to expand...

Oh ok, sorry I use 0.5ml NPOX on my 550l system everysecond day - as I feel it just helps keeps things in check. :) never seen clear snotty stuff in my sump.

My nitrates and phos is undetectable with salifet kit.

In all my systems, I only feed what I can see the fish eat in 2min. Nothing more.
@Triton, my advice would be - do regular water changes with a good bacteria addition - special blend or microbacter 7 (i love both products), check feeding habits.
 
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I have attached a rough drawing of my sump setup.. (Oh i didnt add that i run CO2 with my Skimmer)

sumpSetup.jpg

sumpSetup.jpg
 
Oh, one other thing that helped me a lot with my first tank - if you feed frozen foods....strain them in a tea strainer with sonme tank or ro water....then feed the clean stuff....i use to just chuck it in the water....caused hectic problems...

Again, just if you do have feeding issue...not saying you do...:)
 
cool drawing...but wont be able to assist not a fan of DSB...will leave it to the more expierenced in DSB guys...
 
Crushed Live rock (take out) just another place for kak to get trapped. Please tell me it's Live rock and not crushed coral?

Size of system? TS2 rated for around 500L I think.

Do you clean your Chaeto?

Also not a good idea to mix denitrification methods i.e. DSB and Carbon dosing (Generally), Sounds like a very similar situation I had where my DSB just didn't take? How old is the system. My mistake was not using the correct gravel for the dsb.
 
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Feeding :
1 - I feed pellets to my fish every morning and when i get home around 7pm.
2 - I Mix half a teaspoon of Reef pearls with my tank water and target feed my SPS and dump the rest into the display tank.
 
see now DT 1400 x 500 x 800
sump 1000 x 300 x 300
dsb
ts2 skimmer
dude think its time for and upgrade on skimmer check out the new JSN skimmers
and tell us more on you husbandry regime
 
Can you please post a pick off the crushed live rock compartment? I think you got plenty of ditus build up there. How often do you change the filter mat? Do you stir the top layer off the dsb when doing water changes?
 
trad said:
Crushed Live rock (take out) just another place for kak to get trapped. Please tell me it's Live rock and not crushed coral?

-- Nope i think its actually Lava Rock (That brownish crushed rock you get at any LFS)

Size of system? TS2 rated for around 500L I think.

-- Tank is roughly 600L (1.4 length x 450 width x 800 height)

Do you clean your Chaeto?

-- Nope, Guess i should.. Oops..

Also not a good idea to mix denitrification methods i.e. DSB and Carbon dosing (Generally), Sounds like a very similar situation I had where my DSB just didn't take? How old is the system. My mistake was not using the correct gravel for the
dsb.

-- So should i not use the Red Sea Stuff?
Click to expand...

See response aboove
 
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