At my Witts End

[Braves Fan]

Well, some of my numbers are heading in the right direction. Phosphates were at 0.50, five days after Pura Phoslock they are at 0.25, still bad but heading in the right direction. Mag. is up to 1280. I will keep working on the nitrates.

 

[BHAMR6]

You might be putting to much into the nitrates i'm not an expert but i have alot of sps w/th great color and good growth and my nitrates or between 10-20 . I have done many of the things they are telling you to try and still no luck . I DID DOSE VODKA AND IT KEPT MY NITRATES AROUND ZERO. . I have a 65g with a shallow sand bed i feed my fish 2 cubes a day i dont drain anything off the food I do 25g water changes every 3 to 4wks. I do have a large skimmer ASM G3 for my tank and i skim wet. Anybody on here that knows me will tell you i'm ocd about cleaning and doing all that i couldnt get the nitrates to go below 10-20 with out vodka

I haven't dosed vodka in over a yr i just stick w/th my cleaning and the nitrates are 10-20 and everything does great

 

[Braves Fan]

I have been told the 10 - 20 isn't a bad thing as long as the Phosphate number is low, but getting them below 10 is just something I wanted to do. After the new skimmer is ordered, I might try the Vodka dosing route. We had no one that I know of in my area doing the Vodka dosing, I posted the link from this forum onto our local forum and a man here with a 250g tank started 6 days ago. His nitrates are at 25 so we will see how he does with his tank. When you were using the Vodka, what were your natrates levels running and what was the reason for stopping the Vodka dosing, if you don't mind me asking?

 

[beaslbob]

IMHO you have probably hit the minimum nitrates with your setup using water changes. Water changes will never maintain unmeasureable nitrates unless they are at extreme values like 10 100% tank changes each day.

What you should do is increase the nitrate consumers like various plant life. So I would add a refugium with macro algaes to get and keep nitrates at unmeasureable levels. Regardless of the water changes being done.

Others use bacterial actions like DSBs and even dosing vodka. I have found thriving macro algaes like chaeto, or halemida or even micro alage like corraline to be a much safer and easier method of maintaining the tank. With nitrates being a good example.


my .02

 

[Braves Fan]

I have some chaeto in my sump now, its not much (a hand full) but I have several people trying to get their hands on some more for me.

 

[DaveA]

I have some chaeto in my sump now, its not much (a hand full) but I have several people trying to get their hands on some more for me.

You don't need to get any more. The amount you have will grow, and it will grow rather quickly if your nitrates are high.

In addition to Chaeto, a remote deep sand bed (RDSB) is very good. It will bring your nitrates down within 2 weeks.

 

[shapermike]

You can also try adding more bacteria to your system. This will get rid of the root of the problem. I have had problems in the past with this and I do feed heavily and I have large fish as well. My total tanks volume is 300 display 250 frag tank and another 120 gals that includes sump and rock tank and a small zoa grow out tank. I think a total water volume of 577 gals.The amount of wast that is produced is very high.

I started out with hi phosphate like 1.0 with nitrates around 30 or so.

I added a GFO reactor which reduced the phosphate level over 3 months time to .05 to .03.
I also started to use the Brightwell MicroBacter 7 with Vodka for a carbon base for the bacteria . This really helped to reduce the nutrients in the system that caused the problem to start with. There are several Threads on different board that talk about this. I have also started to us the Warner Marine snow. It is a new product from them. I mix it with the WM ultimate amino in with the fish food. I see the corals are much happier now and see a lot of growth too.

I hope this information helps you in you long road to reefing success

 

[Braves Fan]

Several people have suggested the RDSB, that maybe something I will give a try. I have room under my stand for another tank next to my sump. I think I will check into doing this. Anyone have a link to get me started in the right direction on setting one up?

 

[BHAMR6]

My tank had been running for about 6mos the nitrates would stay over 20 even doing large water changes I did a search on RC and found a guide to vodka dosing it told you to add a small amount of vodka and increase it over a amount of time until you reached a certain point then you were to back off a little and that would be your dose from now on... I started it and within no time it had my nitrates to 0 , I stopped dosing it because if you were to mess up and dose to much it would cause a bacteria bloom and no one was clear on what problems that would cause in your tank.. So i went back to a more natural approach.. I will say this i dont know how mature your tank is but the more mature my tank got the easier the nitrates were to get low...

I dont have any room in my sump for a fuge so for me that is not a option so taking it out naturally w/th algea i think is the best way if you can do that.. Same goes for a DSB i dont have room for that either...

 

[seascape]

i had the same problem was going to go to vodka dosing but a friend told me about 2 products from brightwell--Microbacter7 and Biofuel the stuff works wonders on nitrates and phosphates keeps them well into a safe area.allstarted going down within 1 week and was safe within 3 weeks.If you follow the instructions on the bottles to a T you will see a big difference and instead of building up the doses as needed dosing vodka you dose less alot less after 2 weeks with the brightwell products.RJ

 

[saltyfishguy]

A remote deep sand bed would help alot.
I did notice here that your test kit for phosphates actually had a high reading , i own a lfs i can tell you if you get a reading at all on almost all test kits your actual number is through the roof, are you using gfo in a fluidized reactor? in not add it.
Do you run a fuge? Grape calurpa helps with phosphates. also saw the question asked about your salt mix, but I scanned quickly,
your water mixing container can also be leeching nitrates as well as phosphates , Most recommend a Brute by rubermaid can but a food safe container should be all right.
I agree 20-25 on the trates arent bad i have seen tanks do great in that range and than look horrid when lower , just dont let it get higher

 

[DaveA]

Several people have suggested the RDSB, that maybe something I will give a try. I have room under my stand for another tank next to my sump. I think I will check into doing this. Anyone have a link to get me started in the right direction on setting one up?

There is a WHOLE LOT of info at WWM. There are seven FAQs; here's a link to the first one: DeepSandBeds

 

[Braves Fan]

Thank You for the link

 

[DaveA]

Thank You for the link

Sure. Lots of good info & reading there on many topics

 

[xrayrider]

I had a very difficult time with nitrates until I started using a very deep sand bed. I use 6-7 inches. I quit testing my nitrates 6 months ago because they were always 0 after the first month of using a deep sand bed. Phosphates are a little harder. I tried the Vodka dosing method, but it is a little too much work. A great skimmer combined with the use of Rowaphos will solve this issue. Rowaphose works much better than most other feric oxide products, for phosphate removal. It has been processed, and does not look like a fine redish brown (rust) powder, like most of the other products available for phosphate removal. These products are essentiall just rust in its natural form. I am not sure exactly what has been done to the feric oxide that Rowaphos sells, but it is granular, not dusty, and black, not brownish red. It last about 4 times as long, and works much better during the time it is good, than the non-granular brands. Once I started using a deep sand bed, a good skimmer, and Rowaphose, I never had any forther problems. High flow is also good for suspending dentritus in the water column, until it is removed, so it doesn't settle out, and decay.

 

[Braves Fan]

I asked my LFS man about setting up a DSB, he shot it down just about as fast as the words came outa my mouth. He said he has seen several people use this method and no one he know has had the results that would make this worth the time and money that it takes to set it up.

 

[Paul_N]

I asked my LFS man about setting up a DSB, he shot it down just about as fast as the words came outa my mouth. He said he has seen several people use this method and no one he know has had the results that would make this worth the time and money that it takes to set it up.

WOW! if he is talking about a DSB in the main display tank, I understand the sand cost some extra $ but to say it is not worth it is just nonsense. If he was talking about an RDSB (Remote Deep Sand Bed) then he also hasn't got a clue. They are very cheap and can be run in a 5 gal bucket. Here is a picture of one I set up in the past when I had a FOWLR.

 

[DaveA]

WOW! if he is talking about a DSB in the main display tank, I understand the sand cost some extra $ but to say it is not worth it is just nonsense. If he was talking about an RDSB (Remote Deep Sand Bed) then he also hasn't got a clue. They are very cheap and can be run in a 5 gal bucket. Here is a picture of one I set up in the past when I had a FOWLR.

+1

You must take everything a LFS says with a grain of salt (table salt, not our expensive kind ) They're out to make sales. My LFS said the same thing, and they are just plain wrong. I don't know the reason they're saying this - I don't know how they would make money to shoot them down, but they work extraordinarily well, and you can set them up for very cheap. As Paul said, you can set them up in a bucket, so the only costs are the sand, the pump, and the plumbing. Read the WWM FAQs instead (links above in this thread). They are not trying to sell anything.