Help! Nitrates sky high. Getting NoPox today.

[tcrumbley]

Hey guys! Looking for a little help. My aquarium has been setup for about 6-7 weeks. Ammonia stable at 0.25 on API test kit, but zero according to the Seachem Alert tag. Nitrites 0, Nitrates 80 I started with live sand and 100lbs of dry rock in a 225g aquarium. I have a eshopps cone protein slimmer, and have added live sand, Seachem Matrix, and Seachem De*nitrate in the refugium area of my sump. I have 2 small clownfish and a CUC consisting of different snails, hermits, and 3 emeralds. (Which have cleaned up 90% of the green algae).

I was doing 20% water changes, but then realized I had high nitrates in my RODI water. Changed my membrane filter and solved that issue. I am doing another water change 20% this morning with the good water.
My question is, I have a bottle of NoPox coming in the mail today. For a 225g system, what should I start dosing at to get the nitrates under control? Everything in the tank seems to be thriving well at this point.

thanks for the help!!!

 

[User1]

I'd slow down a bit and not rush to dose nopox. Your tank is only 7 weeks as you noted and still going through the cycle or post cycle stages. There is more to the cycle than being able to process 4 ppm ammonia in under 24 hours. Personal opinion anyway - you don't need nopox.

 

[tcrumbley]

So the nitrates will come down on there own in time? Do I just keep doing the regular water changes?

 

[muzikalmatt]

So the nitrates will come down on there own in time? Do I just keep doing the regular water changes?

Assuming you're feeding your fish moderately and you took care of the nitrates in your source water, they should come down with your water changes. If want to speed up the process you can do a 10-20% water change everyday or every other day until your nitrates are where you want them to be. From there, as long as you aren't overfeeding and your filtration is working your nitrates should stabilize. I agree you shouldn't jump to using NoPox just yet.

 

[andrewey]

I wouldn't dose nopox right now. I'd slow down. Take things slow. At this point, there isn't anything beyond fish food and water changes your tank could need. You're more likely to cause more problems as a new reefer using these tecniques.

 

[esther]

I'm going through the same thing currently. Trying to reduce Nitrates slowly. I just started using NOPOX (at a very small daily dosage). Haven't seen much of a change, but I did clean out my refugium a couple of days ago and that helped significantly because I removed all of the marine pure blocks I had in there. They were gathering gunk. Feel free to check out my thread if you want to see what I'm doing daily. My recommendation is to just go really slow. Good luck!

 

[Birddog61]

Now that you have found the issue with your rodi. Water changes will reduce no3 among other things. That said somthing larger than 20% is most likly in order such as 50 to 65 % for your first wc. And large water changes are not an issue. When done correctly by matching salinity temp and introducing new water over a period of an hour or so.