Battle against Nitrate!!

[RC88]

Hello fellow reefers !!

I’m sending out the bat signal here for some advice.

It sounds like a common problem but I am having a battle trying to lower my nitrates in my 22 gallon tank.
It’s been running for 6 months and I haven’t been able to lower my nitrates to below 20ppm. Below are my parameters. In an attempt to lower the nitrates I have recently installed an algae reactor. It’s been on for 4 days. No obvious cheato growth yet and also no nitrate removal from a recent test I carried out. I am using the Red Sea Nitrate test kit. Maybe I should try a kit from a different brand to make sure - any recommendations? My corals are doing great (apart from a leather finger coral) and so are my fish. Below is a list of my live stock. Any suggestions on what I can do or test are welcome. Perhaps I just need to be patient with the algae reactor - I don’t know.

live stock:
Neon Green Cabbage
Finger coral white Polyp
Bam Bam Orange Zoanthids
Toxic green Ricordea florida
GSP
Superman Discosoma mushroom
True forest fire montipora digitata

parameters
Alk - 8.5
Ammonia - 0
Calcium - 480 (has been rising lately)
Nitrate - between 20 & 50
Nitrite - 0
Ph - 8.2
Phosphate - 0.2
Salinity - 1.026
Temp - 76

 

[vetteguy53081]

I simply use chemipure elite which lowers (has gfo) and keeps it and phosphate in check

 

[brmreefer]

4 Days for an algae reactor is not enough time in my opinion. Some LFSs provide testing to double check your NO3, otherwise if a suspected testing error might exist, then validate it against another brand's. Most NO3 testing kits available are good.

Give the reactor time and see how it fares.

 

[SPR1968]

There are various ways to reduce nitrates but to be honest in a tank of that size the easiest way is simple water changes.

You could do a 5-10% change every few days and that would help over a period of weeks without upsetting the parameters to much

 

[ReeferWarrant]

Vodka dosing worked for me as well, as long as you have a skimmer you might want to look into that.

 

[fish farmer]

Run the reactor for 4 weeks and see how it goes.

It took about that much time in my 29 gallon to see a nitrate and phosphate reduction with cheato.

 

[RC88]

Thanks guys! Really appreciate the help and suggestions. As a first measure I will run another test using a different brand test kit. Going to buy a Salifert Nitrate test kit. If the results match, perhaps a bit of patience will do me good. I will give the reactor a bit of time. I read that for some people the cheato grows within days so wondered if something was wrong with mine. Regarding the dosing. I did contemplate it but I chose to opt for the reactor as it should do the same job and gives me one less thing to do daily. I didn’t want to set up auto dosing.

 

[brandon429]

remember in the 1800s where they had creams avail to make up for not ever bathing

that's how I see today's nitrate battles. its ok to manage it among params but we leave clouded heavy waste zones constantly leaking and then seek 10x ways to absorb it all.

nano tank nitrate concerns if valid initially should begin in the clean condition. that means we cannot reach in and grab one of your rocks, swish it mid-tank, and it cast off clouds of waste.

we cannot reach down to the depth of your sandbed, lift a hand, and drop it down mid water and it kills the whole system. the sand / if any should be just about that clean, as if a jawfish has been working it over the last century. whatever fauna survives constant turnover is ideal fauna, but today's design demands that we store waste in the name of fauna, then buy all kinds of offsets for the nitrate perpetually.

anyone with cloudy sand / rocks looking for nitrate control is using the crème
if you already have a low storage tank, then addressing nitrate will be an efficient move but the levels reported wouldn't have me taking action. Pauls runs 160 at times we've read.

Paul B's tank is also consistent in that he doesn't chase nitrate yet has some clouding in the rocks and sand he doesn't run a unls system, and he doesn't care much about nitrate going off his posts.

I would just hold course in your tank

my mention of the above is to show when nitrate is a serious concern how to address it and make your nano long-term strong, the cleaning helps it more than the actual nitrate detailing. right now its maturing as it should if things look great.

*you also have the option to never test for nitrate or phosphate for the rest of your tank's life span, and manage it solely by waste removal. if you'd like to see any decades old nanos running the method holler can do

you have a way to get off testing altogether for the entire lifespan of your nano (other than temp and salinity) talk about headache free reefing / that's the point of the smaller systems.

 

[Biokabe]

Pay attention to @brandon429 above, and above all else exercise patience. Testing is valuable, but the most effective test is the eye test - how does the livestock in your tank look? Are they acting stressed, or are they comfortable and relaxed?

It's good to have a plan - and your algae reactor is one such plan - but remember that what you want, ultimately, is healthy, thriving livestock, not arbitrary numbers for a lifeless tank. If you don't know, the Paul B. that he references is a poster here who has kept a reef tank running continuously for almost 50 years at this point. A lot of good insights if you look through his posts.

The way I try to approach nitrates is - nitrates are waste products. But nature hates waste. Anything that can decay and turn into nitrates is something that someone, somewhere, wants to eat. So to keep nitrates under control, find those things and let them eat the things that will turn into nitrates. Better to build CUC bodies (or chaeto) than nitrates. =)

 

[brandon429]

I also think there's no harm in tinkering with it, pretty easy to manage once in solution. Randy's article shows that pretty much any method has very fast rebounds rates given our typical arrangements so it becomes repetitive to manage if one chooses to.

Color tuning tricks can be had by its alteration and battling certain invaders gives merit to nitrate control. But in typical conditions focusing more on the physical work aspect of feed/ change water feed/ change water will pump more mass into a reef as coral than any method. Large tanks won't have the easy luxury of such access

for sure not everyone wants a deep cleaned system. its merely a total cheat to making any nano reef do exactly what you want if you get tired of experimenting. heavy feed in / waste out cpr action will simply bodybuild a nano reef as others might have to be waiting for the supps to kick in.

 

[RC88]

Hi guys! You are absolutely right. I’ve recently added a few frags and they are all open and seem to be happy. Apart from an older leather finger coral which really is unhappy. It’s why I half heartedly think that the test results may be incorrect. Everything seems fine. I will check out Paul B’s posts. Always looking to build on my knowledge. Thanks for the valuable advice.

 

[HuduVudu]

25ppm nitrate for 3 weeks dosing 10ml of phyto a day:

If you are trying to reduce nitrate because you have algae problems then you are barking up the wrong tree.

My established tank's nitrate hovers around 5ppm and I am dosing magnesium nitrate plus I am dosing 20ml of phyto in that tank. Honestly reefs consume nitrate that is their job. If yours isn't doing that then something is not working like it should.

 

[Crustaceon]

5% Water change ——> Beneficial bacteria dose ——>Wait 24 hours ——> Retest ——> (if over 10ppm nitrates) 5% water change ——-> Beneficial bacteria dose ——-> Wait 24 hours ———> Retest ——-> (if over 10ppm nitrates) 5% water change ——-> Beneficial bacterial dose.... Make sure you STOP at 10ppm nitrates. Most immature tanks will have serious issues with extremely low nutrients such as dinos and cyano. 10ppm is totally fine to keep pretty much whatever coral you want, from softies to acros. To maintain, don’t overfeed your critters (I feed 9 typical sized reef fish a single cube of frozen mysis per day) and keep doing a 10% water change + retest each week. Nitrates go below 10 = change a smaller water percent. If it goes up, change more.

 

[brandon429]

Mighty clean system there

 

[RC88]

25ppm nitrate for 3 weeks dosing 10ml of phyto a day:

If you are trying to reduce nitrate because you have algae problems then you are barking up the wrong tree.

My established tank's nitrate hovers around 5ppm and I am dosing magnesium nitrate plus I am dosing 20ml of phyto in that tank. Honestly reefs consume nitrate that is their job. If yours isn't doing that then something is not working like it should.

Hi, thanks for that. Luckily I don’t have any signs of algae which is good. If my test results didn’t say high nitrates - I wouldn’t have guessed anything was wrong or irregular. My concern is if I don’t lower the nitrates and don’t control my phosphates then I will have an algae outbreak. That’s why I introduced the algae reactor. Hoping it would keep both at bay.

 

[HB AL]

Dosing Nopox will lower your nitrates to whatever level you want to keep it at. Just fine tune the dose at the beginning till you figure out the perfect dose for your tank, doing this will keep the nitrates at whatever level you want them.

 

[HuduVudu]

My concern is if I don’t lower the nitrates and don’t control my phosphates then I will have an algae outbreak.

This is a fallacy.

I know that what I am saying is heresy but it is true.

Competition through biology is the answer.

 

[living_tribunal]

Hello fellow reefers !!

I’m sending out the bat signal here for some advice.

It sounds like a common problem but I am having a battle trying to lower my nitrates in my 22 gallon tank.
It’s been running for 6 months and I haven’t been able to lower my nitrates to below 20ppm. Below are my parameters. In an attempt to lower the nitrates I have recently installed an algae reactor. It’s been on for 4 days. No obvious cheato growth yet and also no nitrate removal from a recent test I carried out. I am using the Red Sea Nitrate test kit. Maybe I should try a kit from a different brand to make sure - any recommendations? My corals are doing great (apart from a leather finger coral) and so are my fish. Below is a list of my live stock. Any suggestions on what I can do or test are welcome. Perhaps I just need to be patient with the algae reactor - I don’t know.

live stock:
Neon Green Cabbage
Finger coral white Polyp
Bam Bam Orange Zoanthids
Toxic green Ricordea florida
GSP
Superman Discosoma mushroom
True forest fire montipora digitata

parameters
Alk - 8.5
Ammonia - 0
Calcium - 480 (has been rising lately)
Nitrate - between 20 & 50
Nitrite - 0
Ph - 8.2
Phosphate - 0.2
Salinity - 1.026
Temp - 76

Best way to remove nitrate without lowering phosphate is to dose carbon by some means whether that's nopox, vinegar, vodka, etc. I dose distilled white vinegar and it works great. Very predictable and easy to fine tune. If you're feeling adventurous, you could also try zeovit.

 

[HuduVudu]

Mighty clean system there

Not intentionally. My established system looks similar to this without any white rock. Honestly I figured that I would have more algae by now. TBF I do run a small T5 on the tank so the light levels are not high.

 

[brandon429]

Well kudos to not needing to blast clean it I’m a little sad we didn’t have a totally wrecked tank to run surgery