Confused fighting high nitrate

[Yaniv]

Hello,
This is going to be a little long, I apologize, please bear with me...
I have been running my first saltwater aquarium for a year now. it is a 100 gallons marine system, fish only.
Recently (about a month ago) I found that my test kit was bad, and that I was experiencing very high level of Nitrate (around 100 ppm using the Salifert test kit). I was heavily stocked (18 fish), without sufficient rocks.
I took a few steps to get the nitrate down:
1 - did a water change (15GL)
2 - added additional 10kg of ceramic media to my sump.
3 - added a reactor with 100gr of biopellets (two little fish)
4 - started adding bacteria on a daily basis (continuum aquatics' bacter gen-M with reef micro fuel)
A week later, I added 100gr of biopellets to the reactor (according to the product directions, the final quantity should be 400gr)
Another week goes by, and the nitrate level still at 100 ppm.
I started adding NOPOX - daily dosage of 12ml.
after a day or two - blooming started. at this point I was dosing NOPOX and bacteria daily.
I removed 100gr of biopellets from the reactor and continued dosing NOPOX. about a week later the blooming went away.
All of this was up until last week (In the meantime the bioload decreased to 11 fish). last weekend I started seeing the nitrate level decreasing from 100ppm towards the 50ppm. this is when I went abroad and did not dose NOPOX for 5 days. I came back home to find the nitrate back close to 100ppm.
Today I did another 15GL water change, and started again with the NOPOX. the biopellets are also still in the sump.
I am very confused right now since I dont see any effect from the biopellets, and since I didnt expect the nitrate to go up again.
I have a bag of XPORT-NO3 which I just opened and prepared for use.
I would really appreciate your help in making things a little bit clear for me on what should I do to get the nitrate down.
should I start using XPORT-NO3? should I continue with NOPOX? and what about the biopellets? can I combine more than one method for better and quicker results?
Please help...

 

[Sabellafella]

Takes 3 4 5 maybe even 6 weeks to get the biopellets goin

 

[Sabellafella]

If u have just fish juss dose vodka or vinegar very cheap also grab a dosing pump and ur goldin

 

[Yaniv]

Thank you Sabellafella for your quick response. If using vinegar - can I still continue with bio pellets? What about Nopox and xportno3? Is there any damage from doing everything together? And how much vinegar should I use? How quick does that work?

 

[Stoube26]

Here's a few sites that explain vodka/vinegar dosing, you can also use this for reefs and not just with FO/FOWLR:
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-08/nftt/
http://melevsreef.com/node/184

 

[Stoube26]

Also for what it's worth, I took out my biopellets to allow for more biodiversity in my bacteria. The biopellets provide a safe haven for one specific type of bacteria and it crowds out the other types that have to compete for their food. Since I replaced my biopellets with GFO and started vodka dosing my phosphates are undetectable and I purposely keep my nitrates at .25ppm, which is easy to do with carbon dosing

 

[Yaniv]

What is GFO?

 

[Stoube26]

Granular Ferric Oxide, it's essentially rust. You run it in a media reactor for best efficiency or you can run it in a media bag in your filter. The GFO bonds chemically with the phosphates in your tank removing them from the water column. BRS has probably the cheapest GFO I've been able to find

 

[jerseypete]

Biopellets, nopox, xport, vinegar. Maybe slow down a little here. Pick one. Research it. And stick with it. It takes time but all the methods work. You also should have your output from your biopellets reactor plumbed into the input of your skimmer. It's working if you got bacteria blooms in your tank. You didn't get to 100 ppm nitrate overnight. It took time. It also takes time to get it lower.

 

[Stoube26]

I agree with jerseypete. At this point if you are needing to get you nitrates down fast you need a larger water change and pick one nutrient reduction method and stick with it. Also might be beneficial to determine the cause of the high nitrates if they accumulated fast, if it was a slow decrease then it's more than likely a deficient water change schedule/amount

 

[Yaniv]

Jerseypete - I am trying to research...
I am trying to find people who can advise from their experience and knowledge.
I want to better understand how each of the methods work, which ones you can combine and which ones contradict each other. I guess I expected the biopellets to work quicker, and when it didn't seem to work, I started questioning and looking how to expedite the process.

 

[Yaniv]

I know I want to stick with biopellets for the long run. The question is what to do now and how to reduce the nitrate from 100ppm. I will do water changes every other day for the next two weeks (10% ok?).
The amount of biopellets currently in the reactor is about 50gr, when I should get to 400gr in the end. I am afraid to add more biopellets because I don't want to cause an additional bacteria bloom. What do you think?
What else can I do?

 

[Stoube26]

If you want to keep the biopellets stop dosing NOPOX, they will contradict each other and allow NO3 and PO4 to go unchecked. I'd also pull the Xport NO3. Do a larger than normal water change possibly 20-25% and keeping the biopellets going with heavy skimming.

Edit: as stated earlier in the thread biopellets take weeks to start up so you will need to stay up on testing and water changes to get the NO3 to a manageable level

 

[Harold Green]

Do you have a sump where you can grow macro's. A large ball of macros can remove quite a bit of nitrate and phosphate daily.

 

[Yaniv]

I haven't put the xport no3 inside the system yet. Why shouldn't I put it in?
Regarding the biopellets - should I add more media to the reactor?

 

[Yaniv]

Harold - I have a sump, but no room to grow macros...

 

[Stoube26]

The Xport will remove the nitrates from the water column but you want some to feed the biopellet bacteria. You want roughly 236ml of biopellets per 50 gallons of system volume.

 

[Yaniv]

Ok, thanks. Adding the biopellets should be done very slowly in order to avoid blooming, correct?

 

[Stoube26]

When I did it i added them all at once to the reactor, then forgot about it for a couple months until I needed to add more pellets. The less you mess with it the better off you are. I'd say at this point getting the nitrates under control takes priority over the possibility of a bacteria bloom

 

[Yaniv]

Another question, and sorry for all the questions... What if I add the xport in order to reduce the nitrate from 100 down to 10-20 and then take it out and let the biopellets deal with it?