I have had the tank up and running for 6 months now and still can't get my nitrates below 25ppm. I purchased an ro di unit from brs and have done 2 50% wc in the last 2 weeks. I'm running an aquaclear 110 converted into a mini fuge with culerpa and chemipure elite. I'm also dosing probido digest and brightwells liquid reef fuel to try and combat it but it won't come down. all the livestock is appearing to be well. I have a pink birdsnest frag that is yellowish brown which i think is from the high nitrates, my 2 pocilliporas are fine and showing growth. Any ideas? I was thinking of bio pellets or maybe nitrazorb/gfo in a phosban 150 My salifert na kit expires in 2016. I'm at a loss. The mini fuge has been running for 1 1/2 months and has been harvested twice
What size tank, what are the inhabitants and how much live rock/substrate do you have? How much, how often and what do you feed? What do you have for mechanical filtration if any? Filter sponges of foams and your cleaning method?
First things I woud do is stop any supplements or additives and go back to as natural as possible, leaving all that stuff on the shelf where it belongs. Concentrate on small feedings no more than once a day and I usually skip a day here and there so feed 5 times a week and only what they can eat in a minute or two. I have always followed the rule of thumb that a fishes stomach is about equal to the size of its eyes and feed accordingly, it has worked well for over 30 years now.
Do regular small water changes of 10-20% maximum and use a good name brand salt mix with no other additions or supplements. Take a nitrate sample, split it in two and take half to your LFS to confirm the readings you get with your half.
Once you are back to "natural", monitor parameters for several weeks then make any changes One At a Time and monitor its progress again over a minimum of several weeks to see if it had a positive or negative effect on the system. Don't make any other adjustments or changes until you have a baseline to go from. Only bad things happen quickly in this hobby, all good things take time. If you find you want to start adding supplements or additives again do it slowly with time to monitor and adjust between each different change. At this point you really don't have any idea what is doing what and if any or all of it is good or bad. Basically start over and do lots of monitoring to see what effect each change has on the system and discontinue anything that is of no help or benefit. Most of all, Take Your Time.
Last edited by AZDesertRat; 03-26-2014 at 10:22 AM.
The tank is a 29gal with 35 lbs of rock running a reef octopus skimmer. Running a aquaclear 110 converted into a fuge with a filter pad and chemipure elite. I have 2 clowns, six line wrasse and 2 yellow tail damsels. i feed 1/2 a cube a day to fish and a whole cube 3 times a week when target feeding corals . substrate is agronite 2" deep. I just got a hanna checker for po4[will check tonite] The corals overall look good, acan zoas and duncans are showing real nice growth I do a w/c once a week and chane filter pad then I use IO reef crystals for salt. I do have to scrape glass each day[slight green film] I run a 6700k light on fuge and noticed a start to some red cyno in the filter but not in the main tank yet Unfortunately my lfs isn't very knowledgable so i dont trust their opinion
I have had the tank up and running for 6 months now and still can't get my nitrates below 25ppm. I purchased an ro di unit from brs and have done 2 50% wc in the last 2 weeks. I'm running an aquaclear 110 converted into a mini fuge with culerpa and chemipure elite. I'm also dosing probido digest and brightwells liquid reef fuel to try and combat it but it won't come down. all the livestock is appearing to be well. I have a pink birdsnest frag that is yellowish brown which i think is from the high nitrates, my 2 pocilliporas are fine and showing growth. Any ideas? I was thinking of bio pellets or maybe nitrazorb/gfo in a phosban 150 My salifert na kit expires in 2016. I'm at a loss. The mini fuge has been running for 1 1/2 months and has been harvested twice
How long have you been useing the bio digest and reef fuel?? Bio digest takes six to eight weeks to kick in as well the reef fuel needs time too. Do you use the reef fuel daily as recommended ? I use this same regiment and have had outstanding results. You are trying to kick start the denitrifying processes which takes time. Once your get biological reaction it will go down very quickly. I noticed you did not say if you use a skimmer or not. If not I highly recommend you get one.without a skimmer it will be very hard to get it under control. Filter pads are nitrate factory's,I would remove it ASAP and opt for a filter sock but you need to replace it often,even before it is clogged. they work great but if ignored the waste it gathers will breakdown in it and create No3 . I change mine every 2 days regardless. Keep to 10% water changes and siphon your gravel and be patient is my suggestion.
Your phosphate reads zero and this is your most important clue. If phosphate levels are truly zero then your beneficial bacteria will not be able to exploit the available nitrate. The small algal bloom removes any available phosphate due to feeding. Do a water change when you scrape the glass to remove those algae. Also set your skimmer to skim wet for now................Jim
At a loss
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