My nitrates have been high for months. They had gotten up to 100+ somehow and so I've been dosing daily with NoPOx and the levels have gotten down to about 40-60, but it's still too high! I do water changes every few weeks, clean the filters, have a skimmer, have 2 bags of chemi-pure blue, a clean up crew, etc. I started my NoPOx low and have increased every 2 weeks so now I'm up to 8 mls a day, and still it's high. Currently, my tank is FOWLR because all my corals die, no matter what I do. But I'm hoping to get my nitrates down so I can get some corals. Anyone have any other suggestions??
nitrate nightmare!!
- Thread starter SmokeyNite
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Oscaror
Back In It
What size tank, how many fish, what filtration (specifics)
#reefsquad
Oh and, PS: Welcome to R2R
Flippers4pups
Fins up since 1993
Can you list your water pramameters?
What's your source water?
How long has the tank been up and running?
Also what do you feed? How much? How many times a day?
That dose of NoPox is appropriate for a tank of about 100 gallons.
That dose of NoPox is appropriate for a tank of about 100 gallons.
Rodi water?
My tank is approx 92 gallons with the sump and DT. It's been up for almost 2 years. Generally, we feed a bit of reef frenzy once a day, but just ran out so a cube of omega one frozen (I believe). The tank is at my mom's house so I'll have to get all the parameters tomorrow. We have an RODI filter from air, water and ice, and make our own water. We tried rinsing our food before feeding, but a lot of things I read said that doesn't contribute much to the nitrates. We hvae 3 PJs, 1 clown, 1 orange diamond goby, 1 fox face, 1 firefish, 1 six line, and 1 canary wrasse. My fox face is large and we are going to be getting rid of him. We're going to trade him for another clown. My clown of about 8 years died a few months ago, leaving my other one lonely.
WVNed
The fish are staring at me with hungry eyes.
I use 9ml every morning in a 75 (3ml per 25 gallons as recommended on the label). I had to start dosing phosphates to get it to work. I have brought mine down to 20-40 from over 100.
Big G
captain dunsel
In my own 90, my nitrates were zero and phosphates zero. Not good. I was able to raise both by "stopping" my pretty thorough rinsing of frozen foods. So yeah, it does effect the nitrate/phosphate levels if you rinse and strain frozen foods. And 25% water changes each week could help as well. Of course your mileage could vary. Just remember, nothing good happens in this hobby quickly. Hope this helps you a bit.
What are you measuring with? Have you check your nitrites (NO2)? If you change 25 % of the water - what´s happen with NO3 levels? What´s I m trying to say is that check all of the easy stuff first. As @WVNed state - sometimes PO4 is needed in order to have NoPox to work well.
Sincerely Lasse
Sincerely Lasse
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Details to consider
- we have threads of three common top name brand nitrate kits reading 50 ppm differences off the same sample. Your posted nitrate readings need to be cross checked and possibly averaged depending on what else you test with, the levels are currently not accepted as fact this is helpful to know, you could be much higher or much lower.
- clouding and detritus stores in the system are your nitrate stores once the overall bioload and simple export systems are factored, post a full tank picture. Dosing anything to your water, no pox, po4 etc is guess work, if you want to get things under control the tank needs to be cleaned of detritus waste stores. Your nitrate issue is located if you can reach in, grab sand and drop it, and a massive cloud erupts. If you can reach in, grab live rock and swish it in the tank and a huge cloud erupts, we need to reverse both those conditions or you’ll be hooked on making retail purchases for good, the tank needs simple skip cycle cleaning. you are better off managing simple clouding you can see with unaided eye than you are changing params by dosing, as you also want to prepare your upcoming reef to be less likely to have various invasions like cyano and hair algae, clouding causes those issues and needs to be handled early on, it’s why nearly all reefers (not all of them, but the majority) cleans their sandbeds nowadays.
- we have threads of three common top name brand nitrate kits reading 50 ppm differences off the same sample. Your posted nitrate readings need to be cross checked and possibly averaged depending on what else you test with, the levels are currently not accepted as fact this is helpful to know, you could be much higher or much lower.
- clouding and detritus stores in the system are your nitrate stores once the overall bioload and simple export systems are factored, post a full tank picture. Dosing anything to your water, no pox, po4 etc is guess work, if you want to get things under control the tank needs to be cleaned of detritus waste stores. Your nitrate issue is located if you can reach in, grab sand and drop it, and a massive cloud erupts. If you can reach in, grab live rock and swish it in the tank and a huge cloud erupts, we need to reverse both those conditions or you’ll be hooked on making retail purchases for good, the tank needs simple skip cycle cleaning. you are better off managing simple clouding you can see with unaided eye than you are changing params by dosing, as you also want to prepare your upcoming reef to be less likely to have various invasions like cyano and hair algae, clouding causes those issues and needs to be handled early on, it’s why nearly all reefers (not all of them, but the majority) cleans their sandbeds nowadays.
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Flippers4pups
Fins up since 1993
Me too.
ihavecrabs
2500 Club Member
I figured that was where you were going with the parameters question. Didn't want to infer/imply though
Flippers4pups
Fins up since 1993
I figured that was where you were going with the parameters question. Didn't want to infer/imply though
It was and is. Like minds think alike!
I missed where he is using Reef Roids? He did say he was using Reef Frenzy which is a frozen food made by LRS.
I agree it's important to monitor PO4 during using NoPox. The last thing you want is to bottom out your phosphate and trigger a dino outbreak!
