Nitrates 100+ppm, Need help with Dosing Vodka

[Miami Reef]

These pumps are fantastic. You need a manual timer or an apex

BRS 2 Part Doser - 1.1 mL per minute

Why does BRS recommend this? The BRS 1.1 mL dosing pump is a very cost-effective yet long lasting stand-alone dosing pump perfect for trace elements and 2 part. By hooking the pump up to a simple timer or aquarium controller they can be one of the most inexpensive ways to get into an automated...

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[Ashish Patel]

PH graph. It nose dived few days back bc I turned of skimmer and sump flow at night and forgot to turn it back off.

To negate any PH drop i ramped up the flow, increased photoperiod and Kalk increase should hopefully get it over 8.3.

I have an air exchanger on at night but my family doesn't like the noise during the day (due to it being right under the family room). This being on would give me even higher PH

 

[Ashish Patel]

Dosed Vodka for a week and so far no reduced results on test kit. I was not expecting miracles but had small hope for a lighter purple.

I notice my Alk going up so reduced Kalk by 1000ml/day. I also notice growth tips on almost all the SPS.

Below is a pic of my doses so far. I want to ramp it up but last few days had a drop on PH. More caused by changing air exchanger time to less at night (bc tank temp drops) and more during the day(which is a negative when the dryer is on since exhaust goes into my air exchanger Inlet. now I'm back to just air exchanger at night

 

[Miami Reef]

Keep at it. You are doing great with the ramp.

Once you get to 35mL per day you should start seeing some changes. The corals are growing and happy, the pH is fine IMO.

 

[jda]

You could have dropped the no3 in half and the purple could still be pretty dark. I am not saying that you did drop the no3 in half, just that it the Salifert test kit is good to see 1). nearly no no3, 2). some no3, 3). lot of no3 and not much else. The gradients are not easy to read or see so even if you dropped 10 or 20, I doubt that I could see it.

 

[Ashish Patel]

Keep at it. You are doing great with the ramp.

Once you get to 35mL per day you should start seeing some changes. The corals are growing and happy, the pH is fine IMO.

Thanks, I am suffering from trying to make too many changes at ones but I can definately notice less algae growing and my Turbo snails are struggling to eat. I am probably going to pull 4 out and make a make shift area in the sump where I can easily feed them

 

[Ashish Patel]

You could have dropped the no3 in half and the purple could still be pretty dark. I am not saying that you did drop the no3 in half, just that it the Salifert test kit is good to see 1). nearly no no3, 2). some no3, 3). lot of no3 and not much else. The gradients are not easy to read or see so even if you dropped 10 or 20, I doubt that I could see it.

Yeah I think this test kit is very good for measuring at the lower end and not so much for higher end. I am guessing my NO3 is probably at the 200-300PPM+.

 

[Ashish Patel]

2 weeks dosing vodka. Still showing same results on the test kit. Skimmer produces a good gallon per day. Ph has taken a steady dip over past few days. Corals look happy but I am still puzzled why if Nitrates are still of the charts. I guess carbon dosing has other benefits that can't be measured. I would love to get these nitrates to 50ppm.

 

[Ashish Patel]

Also Alk has been rising so I've had to reduce daily 10000ml Kalk to 9000ml per day. It's still raising alk so now may have to reduce to 8000 per day. Good highlight miami reef i dont think i would have caught that had you not mentioned it. My ALK is at 7.9dkh. I'm strongly considering going towards a higher alk like 8.5-9. On my last tank I had better success with natural sea water levels 6.5-7dkh. However every tank is different including the one you think your doing the same thing too.

 

[AKReefing]

I think the idea behind the comment is that the 80 ppm nitrate may have actually been 1-2 ppm nitrite, and losing that amount in 5 weeks is less surprising than 80 ppm real nitrate to zero in 5 weeks.

Surprising or not, it happened for me, and not the first time. I filled a square foot of sump space with 6" of aragonite sand and left it undisturbed. 5 (no more than 6) weeks later my nitrate test showed zero. I thought the test kit was bad so I bought a new one. Same results.

Too bad it doesn't take care of phosphate. I grew algae in the sump for a while, which consumed nitrate and phosphate, but the nitrates are so low now that the algae is all but gone. I feed a small amount once a day, so I'm not contributing much nitrogen source anyway.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Surprising or not, it happened for me, and not the first time. I filled a square foot of sump space with 6" of aragonite sand and left it undisturbed. 5 (no more than 6) weeks later my nitrate test showed zero. I thought the test kit was bad so I bought a new one. Same results.

Too bad it doesn't take care of phosphate. I grew algae in the sump for a while, which consumed nitrate and phosphate, but the nitrates are so low now that the algae is all but gone. I feed a small amount once a day, so I'm not contributing much nitrogen source anyway.

Do you know it wasn’t from nitrite interference? Testing twice doesn’t dispel that possibility.

 

[AKReefing]

Do you know it wasn’t from nitrite interference? Testing twice doesn’t dispel that possibility.

No idea. I set up the DSB a year after setting up the tank. After that long it didn't occur to me to test for nitrite.

 

[jda]

2 weeks dosing vodka. Still showing same results on the test kit.

Keep going. As likely said before, that test kit is not good at showing differences in high levels - you could have dropped from 140 to 100 and it would look the same. The skimmer looks good. Trust the process. You didn't get to 100+ ppm of no3 in a few weeks, so it is going to take more than a few weeks to get it lower.

The pH is likely a product of the co2 in your home. It is starting to get cold, so this is about the time that people post a lot about pH issues.

 

[Ashish Patel]

Keep going. As likely said before, that test kit is not good at showing differences in high levels - you could have dropped from 140 to 100 and it would look the same. The skimmer looks good. Trust the process. You didn't get to 100+ ppm of no3 in a few weeks, so it is going to take more than a few weeks to get it lower.

The pH is likely a product of the co2 in your home. It is starting to get cold, so this is about the time that people post a lot about pH issues.

Thanks Jda, the weather has dropped to 20s in the past 4 days so never looked at that as an issue.

 

[jda]

Don't forsake letting fresh air into your home. A minute or two a day is usually enough and the humans and pets will thank you too. You don't need to cool down your home, just exchange air. If you really have issues with low pH, then a household co2 meter is a good idea for the health of everything indoors.

 

[ronsonb]

I kept getting cyano carbon dosing and decided to build one of those “Donovan Nitrate Destroyers” and the thing is working like a charm. If you have the space in your sump I 100% recommend it. Basically carbon dosing into a pvc u-tube setup instead of directly into the tank. Search for it huge thread on it, pretty ingenious idea.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I kept getting cyano carbon dosing and decided to build one of those “Donovan Nitrate Destroyers” and the thing is working like a charm. If you have the space in your sump I 100% recommend it. Basically carbon dosing into a pvc u-tube setup instead of directly into the tank. Search for it huge thread on it, pretty ingenious idea.

Yes, denitrifiers (organic carbon and sulfur types) generally work and the carbon types predated organic carbon dosing. They are just a bit more complicated and accomplish slightly different goals.

 

[Ashish Patel]

Week 4 started dosing Vodka, ramped up to 56ml per day.

My PO have dropped to 0.01ppm so gonna cut down the LC dosing. Pretty shocking to see 6ppb show up on the Hanna. Salifert Nitrate test kit still pretty purple but when I hold it of the color strip it seems to be lighter. Anyone else can tell me my NO4 based on these pics? 3 pics are from same test

 

[Ashish Patel]

State of the skimmer

 

[Ashish Patel]

I want to get this becket skimmer hooked up but I need a pump that I can just feed LC too. This way i can save my super reef octopus skimmer from constant beating