high Nitrate/Phosphate will not budge

[MasonK24]

My nitrates and phoshates have been high for awhile, fish are fine and corals are fully open and have nice color. coral growth in the tank is very slow

i bought the tank second hand 4 months ago, was completely covered in GHA. got rid of all the algae by spraying LR with hydrogen peroxide and replaced the sandbed with new sand. (about 3 months ago) original owner said he used tap water and did monthly water changes

15 gallon tank
20lb of live rock
20lb live sand
hob filter, slowly taking out media because i feel this is part of the problem. got rid of the polyfilter..in a week or so going to take out another media portion until i can run it empty.

after i bought it i added
skimmer (rated 30 gallon)
1 gallon hob fuge with chaeto

bio load is kinda high i know
-osc. clown
-purple firefish
-lawnmower blenny
-cleaner shrimp
-pom pom crab
-6-7 hermits
-5 trochus snails
-6 nassarious snails

-leather
-couple zoas and palys
-duncan
-blasto
-gsp
-mushroom
-hammer

i feed a dime sized piece of LRS Reef Frenzy every day.i skip a day here and there to try to combat my nutrient problems.

RODI water and Fritz Salt bought from a very reputable LFS.

40-50% weekly water changes.

API test kits
nitrate 40ppm
phosphate .2ppm

they seem to stay steady at those numbers regardless of the huge water changes. id love to keep SPS but thats out of reach right now. ive been doing a lot of research on carbon dosing but thats my last resort. i really dont have it in my budget to buy any expensive piece of equipment like an algae scrubber or a reactor. any advice would be much appreciated.

i'll answer any additional questions asap

thanks,
-Mason

 

[Dr. Reef Verified Sponsor]

You can make a coil denitrator at home for very cheap and it works. Just watch out for hydrogen sulphide gas once it's cycled. You can search it's details. That would bring nitrates down to 0 if needed.
Lanthanum chloride ( seaklear phosphate remover) a few drops will bring phos to 0.
Watch out for residue. Needs to be dosed in a filter sock minimum 10 micron.

 

[pa30crewchief]

https://www.theaquariumsolution.com/rowaphos-why-waste-your-money

Fluidized rowaphos has reduced phosphate from coral killing levels in my 460l reef aquarium (long story involving a fluidized bioreactor that turned toxic after calcite deposits blocked flow and I was traveling...).

Today phosphate read 0.00 on Hanna Phosphate high sensitivity

I can reintroduce SPS again.

 

[MasonK24]

i decided to give carbon dosing a shot. made a DIY Nopox from vodka/vingear. fingers crossed.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

https://www.theaquariumsolution.com/rowaphos-why-waste-your-money

Fluidized rowaphos has reduced phosphate from coral killing levels in my 460l reef aquarium (long story involving a fluidized bioreactor that turned toxic after calcite deposits blocked flow and I was traveling...).

Today phosphate read 0.00 on Hanna Phosphate high sensitivity

I can reintroduce SPS again.

I'm not sure what you mean by a coral killing level (1 ppm doesn't seem to kill corals), but you may now have it too low for good growth.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

i decided to give carbon dosing a shot. made a DIY Nopox from vodka/vingear. fingers crossed.

Sounds good.

Let us know how it goes.

 

[MasonK24]

Update:


it'll be 2 weeks tomorrow since i started dosing my DIY Nopox mixture (vodka/vinegar/rodi)

started with .5 ml first few days
ramped up to 1ml after that
ive been dosing 2 ml now for 3 days

parameters have not budged from
N03-40ppm
P04-.25ppm

lost 2 trochus snails in the process and now one more is not looking so good

skimmer is collecting gunk daily after wet skimming

GHA is still there and seems to be growing still

corals have never looked better though, about the only positive

thinking about bumping up to 3 ml soon, seems extreme for such a small aquarium so im nervous.

let me know what ya think! thanks

 

[Sherman]

Continue with your program. Both will drop eventually

 

[WWIII]

When I had high nitrates in my tank it took around 3 months of dosing vinegar to really see the results. Then once they start to move it seems to go pretty quick. Stick with it and continue your other maintenance and you should see results!

 

[tiggs]

Dosing a carbon source should bring your nutrients down over time. I run a similar sized system (14G cube) and firmly believe that establishing a strong biological filtration method for nutrient export is vital in tanks this small. My method also includes some chemical filtration and is comprised of the following..

- Chemipure Blue
- 20 year old Fiji live rock (the old school Walt Smith stuff, pre boat rock)
- Biodigest/Bioptim every 15 days (I run the entire Prodibio Reef Kit and highly recommend it)

With this in place, I have to feed heavily to keep po3 between 2-5ppm and p04 between 0.02-0.04. In fact, I don't even clean out my rear AIO compartments and this has turned into a breeding ground for sponges and microfauna. Biological filtration is important in all reef tanks, but when you're working with extremely limited water volume and surface area, it's absolutely vital to make sure it's as strong as possible. I think the vodka/vinegar will do the trick, once the bacteria has a change to multiply and do its job.

 

[MasonK24]

Thankyou everyone with the replies, im gonna just keep going strong and wait for results. I learned pretty quickly that patience is key in a hobby like this lol

 

[MasonK24]

Update #2:

It has been nearly a month that i started carbon dosing

my daily dose is now up to 3.5 ml added straight to the system

skimmer needs emptied daily, it is light colored with a hint of yellow

my parameters are

PO4: 0 ppm (API test kit is not accurate in low end tests i know but evidence that it has dropped)
NO3: 20 ppm
Carbonate Hardness: somewhere inbetween 8-9 (again the API test kit)

from my understanding you need some phosphate in the system to complete the cycle from carbon dosing? any reccomendations or anything i should be doing? critisim welcome lol, enlighten me

 

[WWIII]

Sounds like you are on the right track to me! I would really encourage you to look at getting the hanna ulr phosphorus checker to monitor phosphate as you continue the carbon dosing. If you bottom out phosphate completely it could lead to issues and also make it more difficult to get the nitrates down further.

Seems like what you're dosing is working, I'd probably stick around that level and see how it goes.

 

[MasonK24]

Update #3

Parameters
NO3 - 5 ppm
PO4 - <.25

Im up to 4ml carbon dose which seems to be my magic number

i want to get a ULR phosphate hanna checker, just trying to talk myself into forking out $50 lol

i had a PO4 misreading of 0ppm in my last update so i added 4 tbs GFO which seems to be taking it down.

decided that i was ready to try SPS and added a Stylophora and it is doing wonderful besides being a little dull in color

i also added a birds nest which failed completely. i spilled the container when acclimating it and had to "slam dunk" it right into my tank and it is RTNing :/ i broke it into frags to see if i could salvage atleast a little piece. its my favorite coral to date so this is really disappointing..

my cleaner shrimp died, im 90% sure my pom pom crab died too unless it was a molt i found. im also down to 1 trochus snail.

also have an outbreak of cyano or dino. im really not sure.

i love this hobby but man is it stressful sometimes.

atleast my carbon dosing worked ;Shy

 

[MasonK24]

some pictures if anyone was curious of how my tank looks

 

[MasonK24]

Totally forgot about this thread but i will put it to rest.

I dropped my nitrates/phosphates to 0 and everything went downhill fast. I got a horrible outbreak of dinos (ID by microscope) and after weeks of trying to fight them i gave up and the tank is empty besides rock, whatever lives in the rock, and pods which have overrun the tank. The lights have been off for 3 weeks and have completely erradicated the dinos ( i think).

With the addition of my new system i dont know what i want to do, start a new project with it or tear it down.