Nano tank consuming nitrates heavily. help?

[Juka087]

Hey Guys

So I have a nuvo 10 it holds 7.5 gallons of water. I have 11 pounds of dead rock in it. The tank has been running since october of last year. I have filter floss, and seachem matrix biomedia as filtration only. the past 3 weeks I have been dosing vibrant. The last dose of vibrant was last saturday. My nitrates have gone from 5 ppm to 1 ppm across 2 days. Is it possible that it is the vibrant doing this even though the last does was almost 7 days ago. Or is it the pretty good size of zoanthids in the tank doing this. Or could it be the seachem matrix biomedia doing this. Nitrate this morning was 1 ppm, and phosphate .03 ppm. This was done with a brand new nyos test kit, and a hanna phos with new reagents. two days before the results were 5 ppm nitrate, and .06 ppm phos. I have seachem nitrogen/phos. I dosed the tank to 5ppm nitrate and .05 ppm phos just now as I do not feel like worrying about the possibility of dinos from the nutrients bottoming out. Best not to wait. What would you guys do?

 

[ahiggins]

It’s most likely the test kit or vibrant. My moneys on vibrant doing it’s job and killing off the things that uptake nitrates. Or if your tank is clean it’s probably the test kits lol
I also started a 10 gal dry as a challenge to myself one day when I was bored. A challenge it was! After beating back dinos, the hair algae came manual removal and vibrant helped me there. Been running steady over 2 years now

 

[Juka087]

It’s most likely the test kit or vibrant. My moneys on vibrant doing it’s job and killing off the things that uptake nitrates. Or if your tank is clean it’s probably the test kits lol
I also started a 10 gal dry as a challenge to myself one day when I was bored. A challenge it was! After beating back dinos, the hair algae came manual removal and vibrant helped me there. Been running steady over 2 years now

Well the test kits are brand new. What would you do? Just dose nitrates, and phosphates?

 

[ahiggins]

Post a pic of your tank. Dosing nitrate and phos is negating the work you’re trying to do with vibrant. Let’s see what your tank looks like then we can figure out what to do

 

[Juka087]

Post a pic of your tank. Dosing nitrate and phos is negating the work you’re trying to do with vibrant. Let’s see what your tank looks like then we can figure out what to do

Is it really? In the large thread if people dont dose they get dinos as nutrients bottom out.

 

[ahiggins]

Every tank is different.
In my experience if you dose something (vibrant) aimed at getting rid of algae food source and algae-you don’t dose algae food. Lol obviously it’s a super simple way of looking at it but that’s what it boils down to.

 

[Juka087]

Every tank is different.
In my experience if you dose something (vibrant) aimed at getting rid of algae food source and algae-you don’t dose algae food. Lol obviously it’s a super simple way of looking at it but that’s what it boils down to.

On your vibrant thread for your nuvo 10 theres a guy whos nitrates bottomed out and he got dinos . If I recall vibrant directly consumes algae. So it would work in high nitrate/phos. Oddly I know this is true. There was a period were i had like 30 nitrate, and vibrant was destroying algae daily even during that time.

 

[ahiggins]

Mine reversed. So I had dinos because nutrients weren’t there. I dosed n and p got a uv sterilizer and got hair algae lol once that happened I did small doses of vibrant and manual removal making sure I didn’t strip the water and start the whole process again lol
It’s a process but it’s worth it.

 

[ahiggins]

This was last night. No algae to be found

 

[Juka087]

Mine reversed. So I had dinos because nutrients weren’t there. I dosed n and p got a uv sterilizer and got hair algae lol once that happened I did small doses of vibrant and manual removal making sure I didn’t strip the water and start the whole process again lol
It’s a process but it’s worth it.

Do you still dose vibrant?

 

[ahiggins]

Nope. I only dosed for a total of 14 weeks.