Help reducing nitrates

[Reeferburns]

Hi, I currently have a tank with higher nitrates. I understand doing water changes will help but are there any other ways to do this. Would a reactor be better then dosing solutions? Also my NO3 is at 80 ppm. I wanna do sps soon how long should I wait or what should I get my nitrates to before adding sps?

 

[Birddog61]

You should wait untill you have enough experience to manage your tank parameters before getting sps

 

[mike550]

You should wait untill you have enough experience to manage your tank parameters before getting sps

I’d start by figuring out why your nitrates are at 80. What do you have in your tank, and how is it doing?

Totally agree with @Birddog61. I’ve been at this for less than a year and I’m always learning things. It takes a while to get tank parameters stable, and ready for SPS. I’m not as “rushed” as others so I’m just adding softies and LPS.

 

[R.Weller]

It's great to have a goal & SPS are amazing. I also agree with the points above. There are three basic ways to reduce NO3. Chemical, mechanical & biological. My experience with mitigating high NO3 involved upgrades with intentional efforts targeted on biological methods. While biological methods take longer, I would certainly argue they are more stable as dosing to remove NO3 doesn't actually address the root cause. If you're interested in biological methods, I am happy to share what has worked for our builds. Our system does not involve water changes but we do add trace elements to encourage coral growth.

 

[Bryan68]

Hi, I currently have a tank with higher nitrates. I understand doing water changes will help but are there any other ways to do this. Would a reactor be better then dosing solutions? Also my NO3 is at 80 ppm. I wanna do sps soon how long should I wait or what should I get my nitrates to before adding sps?

I suggest you determine what is causing your elevated NO3.
How new is your tank? How is PO4? What livestock do you currently have and what are using for your filtration?
Answering these questions may help in forming proper corrective action.

 

[Reeferburns]

I’d start by figuring out why your nitrates are at 80. What do you have in your tank, and how is it doing?

Totally agree with @Birddog61. I’ve been at this for less than a year and I’m always learning things. It takes a while to get tank parameters stable, and ready for SPS. I’m not as “rushed” as others so I’m just adding softies and LPS.

I’ve been doing saltwater tanks for 10 years now and have kept sps in the past but ever since I changed tanks my NO3 drastically increased. I’ve never had this problem in the past. I had a 55 gallon at one point and it was fish only and well populated and never did I reach 80ppm on that tank. I was just more or less wondering from other people’s experiences because I’ve never needed to use reactors or dosing solutions in all of my other aquariums for NO3. So I more or less was wondering how other people dealt with the problem and if reactors or dosing works better? The tank isn’t over populated and all my soft corals and nem are doing very well even with a higher NO3.

 

[Reeferburns]

It's great to have a goal & SPS are amazing. I also agree with the points above. There are three basic ways to reduce NO3. Chemical, mechanical & biological. My experience with mitigating high NO3 involved upgrades with intentional efforts targeted on biological methods. While biological methods take longer, I would certainly argue they are more stable as dosing to remove NO3 doesn't actually address the root cause. If you're interested in biological methods, I am happy to share what has worked for our builds. Our system does not involve water changes but we do add trace elements to encourage coral growth.

Yes please! Thank you for your answer. Just more or less was looking for the best solution to tackle the problem for the longevity of the tank. I do know not to keep sps in high NO3 so that’s why I’ve been waiting for about a month now. I should have mentioned that it is a tank transfer, so I took all my live rock water, live stock and filtration over to a new tank about a month ago. All of my other parameters are good besides my NO3.

 

[Reeferburns]

I suggest you determine what is causing your elevated NO3.
How new is your tank? How is PO4? What livestock do you currently have and what are using for your filtration?
Answering these questions may help in forming proper corrective action.

I should have mentioned this but about a month ago I did a swap taking all my stuff out of one tank and moving it over to a new tank. I’ve never done this in the past so I’m not experienced in swapping tanks and what it does after doing all that. which in my mind I would assume it would create high nitrates because I was mixing a lot of things around. PO4 is .06. Filtration I use is a aquaclear with gfo and Carbon with bio media plus filter. Also I use a in tank filter mod for the aquaclear. Also I have a 75 gallon rated protein skimmer. Light ai prime 16hd. Size 37 gallon. 4 fish 2 clowns and one purple dotty and coral beauty plus two peppermint shrimp.

 

[Fred2482]

Besides the obvious water changes, feeding schedules, stocking, there are many ways to tackle this. You can carbon dose, get a refug, algae scrubber, or add "Nitrate removers" that will add "denitrification bacteria" to the tank and will be caught in the filtration - protein skimmer.

 

[mike550]

@Reeferburns so I'm new to reefing and definitely don't have your level of experience. That said, when my nitrates went up from 5-ish to the mid-20s, I really struggled with tank management. Ultimately, after trying more natural things like reducing feeding, etc I ended up doing huge water change (about 1/3 each day for three days) to get the nitrates down to 5-10.

Now I'm dosing NoPox at about half the recommended dosage, but may taper that off to see how things go.

 

[R.Weller]

Yes please! Thank you for your answer. Just more or less was looking for the best solution to tackle the problem for the longevity of the tank. I do know not to keep sps in high NO3 so that’s why I’ve been waiting for about a month now. I should have mentioned that it is a tank transfer, so I took all my live rock water, live stock and filtration over to a new tank about a month ago. All of my other parameters are good besides my NO3.

NO3 & PO4 are fertilizers. We grow them out.

I cannot say that it is the best solution, but it is absolutely an effective solution. Have a look here:

DIY Waterfall ATS - 1 yr later

There are several great DIY algae turf scrubbers here on the forum, so I figured I would share what has worked for our system. An important note at the start...we have a large system that is lightly stocked, but I do expect this to scale as the system matures. Our sump is located behind the...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Birddog61]

In all honesty you first need to establish. Continued gains before you get yourself in panic mode. Stiring up nutrients / organics is common during a swap especially if you reused sand.
that said. The first question is whether or not it has stabilized around 80ppm no3 or is it still climbing rapidly keep in mind moving your contents creates a reduction in anaerobic area that removes no3 .
Thus it requires manually removing excess nutrients to prevent the ensuing algae bloom
After the temporary excess organics are processed you can track avarage nutrient production as compaired to your goals to determin what or how much export is required

 

[Reeferburns]

In all honesty you first need to establish. Continued gains before you get yourself in panic mode. Stiring up nutrients / organics is common during a swap especially if you reused sand.
that said. The first question is whether or not it has stabilized around 80ppm no3 or is it still climbing rapidly keep in mind moving your contents creates a reduction in anaerobic area that removes no3 .
Thus it requires manually removing excess nutrients to prevent the ensuing algae bloom
After the temporary excess organics are processed you can track avarage nutrient production as compaired to your goals to determin what or how much export is required

Yeah I think I freaked myself out. Just did a test this morning no water change and it’s down to 40ppm.