Nitrates help

Big G · Jan 3, 2018

milkman754 said:
Wow, I’m gonna need a bigger hose.
Thanks

And lots of RODI & salt.

Be mindful that I was doing the water changes on a tank without fish. New live sand, dry rock, etc. only. Keep a close eye on your fish.

bhuyett · Jan 3, 2018

andyg1960 said:
Nitrates of 4ppm are not likely killing your fish. Need to explore another reason for fish loss

He didn't say if he did the diluted RS Nitrate test for HIGH Nitrates, which would go past 4ppm and could possibly be an issue. Instead of using 15ml in the glass vile, you need to use 16ml of tank water and do the test. This will tell you if your Nitrates are between 4-64ppm.

Mike220 · Jan 4, 2018

Big G said:
Salifert Nitrate test with purple color equates to 100+ ppm of nitrate in a 150 gallon tank. That's a lot of nitrate to remove.

And 25-30 gallon every other week is probably not going to lower nitrate levels in your tank.

To make a significant reduction you are probably going to need to do some aggressive water changes. For example, when my new 90 was finished cycling early last year and it had 1oo+ ppm of nitrate. I did 45 gallon = 50% water change. That significantly lowered it but it was still very high. I ended up doing 3 more 30 gallon water changes over the next 3 days. That brought it down to around a bit less than 20 ppm. Waited a couple of days and did one more 30 gallon w/c. That brought it down to 15 ppm. It's amazing how much water changing as quickly as possible/reasonable it took for me to get my 90's nitrates down. Totaled 1/45 gal, 4/30 gal according to my log. That's a total of 165 gallons for a 90 gallon tank. Now of course your mileage may vary but there it is. Hope this helps.

I believed salifert Nitrate test with purple color is 100ppm:10=10ppm.

Read instructions again

ChrisOFL · Jan 4, 2018

I've used a sulfur denitrator and they work amazingly well but require a lot of attention to make sure they run right. I would suggest trying one of these if your nitrates are truly as high as you believe. Doing water changes to bring down nitrates on a tank this size seems more a struggle than a denitrator. If you want a better resolution on your red sea test you can use 1mL of tank water and 15ml of RO/DI. Multiply the final results by 16 for your actual nitrates. You can do this with other amounts of tank water for different resolutions, just make sure you use RO/DI for the rest of the required 16mL: 2mL - multiply by 8, 4mL - multiply by 4, 8mL - multiply by 2.

Flippers4pups · Jan 4, 2018

Been very busy with work. I'd vacuum your sand bed as well to remove any detritus. This can also help in nitrate removal, as well as water changes.

Reefing Madness · Jan 4, 2018

http://www.melevsreef.com/articles/dosing-vodka-why
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/whos-still-vodka-dosing-and-hows-it-going.82101/

schooncw · Jan 4, 2018

My 120 mixed reef is off the charts with Salifert and API. Heavily stocked, with fish, softies, mushrooms and lots of rock. My tank looks fantastic, no algae, etc. but I would really like to get Nitrates down.
I have a Brightwell brick in an anaerobic section of my sump, do 20 gallons change every week AND have been dosing red sea nopox for almost 2 months! I'm stumped but as I said, everything is very healthy.

Thomashtom · Jan 5, 2018

Also check your R/O filter nitrates. I am having a problem with the water coming out of mine right now. Tom

2Wheelsonly · Jan 5, 2018

Some pretty drastic suggestions for reducing nitrate without actually seeing a picture of the test kit or an idea if it was followed properly.

You need to figure out if you have 4ppm or 100ppm of nitrate because that's a pretty big difference. If you have 4ppm then you have ideal params for coral and there is 0.0 reasons for you to be freaking out as you probably read junk information claiming you need 0 nitrates that infects this hobby like a cancer.

Please don't vodka dose without spending a few weeks researching it left and right. High nitrates in a FOWLR tank is one of the easiest problems to fix, just change your freaking water bro. As mentioned above; make sure your new mixed saltwater is clean...test that asap!

Greybeard · Jan 5, 2018

A few months in on my 140g build, I started seeing high nitrates (50-60ppm). I was hoping that my caulurpa refugeum would keep it under control, but it obviously wasn't. I started doing 40 gallon (~25% of total volume) water changes every other week... that kept it from rising further, but really didn't reduce it much. I picked up a good gravel vac a month or so, continued with the same 40 gallon every other week changes, but used the gravel vac instead of just siphoning water. Nitrates are falling in a controlled fashion now, I'm down to about 20ppm (measured just _before_ I do the water change).

I'm a big fan of stability... I'd always rather adjust slowly, rather than shock things with a major change.

Oh, I picked up the Nyos nitrate test kit that BRS recommends... and I concur. Works great, gives me repeatable readings, anyway. Accurate? Who knows, I don't have anything to compare it to... Reads quite a bit higher than my old test kit, anyway... which is likely why I let it get out of control before I noticed it in the first place.

I'm going to be adding some sand detrivores... nassarius snails, maybe a fighting conch... I already have a small goatfish, but he's not getting very deep into the (1.5") sand bed. I'm hoping that some additional sand dwellers will reduce the need for the gravel vac.

CherryStReef · Jan 5, 2018

I know this has already been mentioned, but the Salifert NO3 kit can be tricky. If you look down through the top of the vial you can go by the colors on the card, if you look sideways through both sides of the vial you have to divide by 10.

PatW · Jan 5, 2018

The Red Sea Pro nitrate test had two modes. One mode is the sensitive mode that maxes out at 4 ppm and can detect iitrate down to .25 ppm. You can do the test for higher ranges and the max ppm measured is far higher. You could try that.

USMC 4 LIFE · Jan 5, 2018

You’re testing the low side of the Red Sea nitrate Test. You need to test for the high range.

Low range : 16 ml of tank water
High range : 15 ml of RODI mixed with 1 ml of tank water.

LovesDogs_CatsRokay · Jan 5, 2018

Since there seems to be a lot of confusion with the tests I’d take a water sample to your LFS and ask them to test it to confirm.

Lasse · Jan 5, 2018

Have you tested for NO2 (nitrite) It will affect NO3 measurements if present.

Sincerely Lasse

jda · Jan 5, 2018

If the nitrate at 100 is real, then I would get it down to 20.

You are a bit fortunate having a FOWLR. If you have a good skimmer, dose some organic carbon. I used to dose sugar in my FOWLR and it keep the N low enough to aggressive grow coralline... about 1 or 2.

You can use vodka or vinegar as well. I used sugar because it was cheap and pure and I hate the way that vinegar smells. You can dose it by the gram, or mix it in water and dose by the ML.

If you do decide to carbon dose, then go slow and be consistent.

milkman754 · Jan 5, 2018

USMC 4 LIFE said:
You’re testing the low side of the Red Sea nitrate Test. You need to test for the high range.

Low range : 16 ml of tank water
High range : 15 ml of RODI mixed with 1 ml of tank water.

Thanks. After some further testing and solid advice, I’m down to between 0.25 and 0.50. I was testing the low side and it’s a much different result. Thanks for all the help.