Nitrates over 100ppm and not reducing.

[Blackened]

Hi everyone.

Been dealing with a terrible nitrate problem in my home 175G system. It seems to always remain at 100 on the Salifert kit. Have crossed checked with other Salifert kits etc.

My skimmer is a Reef Octo Regal 220 INT. Works very well. Pulls out a cup every week or so.

Fuge is lit 24/7 by a 100 Watt LED floodlight 6500K. Has Chaeto and Caulerpa which grow decently. There is no detritus in my sump. The rocks are bare as well.

I vaccum the 1.5” sand bed every 2 weeks.

Flow is by 2 MP40s.

I have run Bio Pellets and Nopox, vinegar, vodka separately for months but the nitrates still stay put at 100ppm. I tried Denitrate and Matrix in 2 reactors and its been 2 months with those and no luck.

I resorted to a 50% water change. This brought the nitrates down to 70ppm but its back up again to 100ppm after a couple of weeks.

I have around 8-10 fish. Mostly Fairy wrasse, a foxface and one G. Melanospilos. I manage the feeding myself which is pinch or 2 of Vitalis of Spectrum pellets.

I’m exhausted trying to fix this problem.

Appreciate some pointers…

 

[ZoWhat]

..........

 

[Blackened]

a pinch or 2 of Vitalis or Spectrum pellets once a day.

 

[EmdeReef]

How long have you been dosing carbon? What are your phosphates at? How old Is the tank?

Nopox should lower nitrates but may take a few weeks to work, you also may need to increase the dose.

 

[ZoWhat]

How old is the LR?

LR been known to absord NO3 and just keep leeching and leeching.

Two approaches:

* pull the LR and violently swoosh it in a 5g bucket of RODI

* take a strong powerhead and blow off your LR every other day. Put filter socks in place to catch the blown off debrus

 

[Blackened]

Carbon has been dosed since Jan. I used Dr Tims BioPellets in the past and usually they worked very well on the same tank. Somehow they no longer seemed to work so I took them off and went with Nopox etc.

Phosphates are sitting around .50ppm. Im not using GFO because of the redfields thingy in case Nitrate uptake is impeded.

This system is around 3 years old.

 

[dwest]

Hi everyone.

Been dealing with a terrible nitrate problem in my home 175G system. It seems to always remain at 100 on the Salifert kit. Have crossed checked with other Salifert kits etc.

My skimmer is a Reef Octo Regal 220 INT. Works very well. Pulls out a cup every week or so.

Fuge is lit 24/7 by a 100 Watt LED floodlight 6500K. Has Chaeto and Caulerpa which grow decently. There is no detritus in my sump. The rocks are bare as well.

I vaccum the 1.5” sand bed every 2 weeks.

Flow is by 2 MP40s.

I have run Bio Pellets and Nopox, vinegar, vodka separately for months but the nitrates still stay put at 100ppm. I tried Denitrate and Matrix in 2 reactors and its been 2 months with those and no luck.

I resorted to a 50% water change. This brought the nitrates down to 70ppm but its back up again to 100ppm after a couple of weeks.

I have around 8-10 fish. Mostly Fairy wrasse, a foxface and one G. Melanospilos. I manage the feeding myself which is pinch or 2 of Vitalis of Spectrum pellets.

I’m exhausted trying to fix this problem.

Appreciate some pointers…

You might be phosphate limited. If there are not enough phosphates, nitrates will not be consumed. Have you checked the phosphates level with a good test kit?

 

[dwest]

You might be phosphate limited. If there are not enough phosphates, nitrates will not be consumed. Have you checked the phosphates level with a good test kit?

Ok. I see you addressed that. What test kit are you using for phosphates?

 

[Blackened]

Ok. I see you addressed that. What test kit are you using for phosphates?

Hanna Phosphate / Salifert

 

[MikeO5422]

I don't know what an 100watt LED floodlight puts out but in my limited experience a powerful/proper fuge light is ridiculously good at removing nitrates. Something like the h380 or h160. Note that it could take weeks (more than 2) for the fuge to adjust.

Also, I don't want to speculate but, maybe vacuum out the sand every week, clean the filters, and really try to blow crap off of the rocks with a baster or super high flow (what other person said). Maybe want to slowly move a rock here and there to eventually get under everything. Get every last bit of detritus out of there!

 

[Japtastic]

I had the same issue. What really made a dent and continues to help to this day is these two products. I also run a large fuge. Carbon dosing never worked for me even at high doses. Tried it for 7-8 months. I don't do water changes.

https://www.nyos.info/en/coralcare/bakterien-und-nährlösungen/bac (I always doubted these kinds of products as snake oil but was recommended by a friend)

https://www.brightwellaquatics.com/products/xport_no3_brick.php ( I keep this in the fuge in a low flow area covered up with a fairly large layer of siporax.

I've just had to reduce my fuge schedule from 16 hours a day to 12 and feed heavier as my Nitrates were 2 and Phosphate were 0.02!

Never thought I'd see those numbers considering how high my Nitrates were.

Good luck

 

[RomoFL]

I had a similar thing happen with elevated nitratesbut in a much smaller tank. While doing a 20% WC, I blew all the crud off my live rock (as others have suggested), replaces my carbon and purigen and that helped a lot. Now I try to blast or brush my rock when I WC.

 

[Blackened]

I had the same issue. What really made a dent and continues to help to this day is these two products. I also run a large fuge. Carbon dosing never worked for me even at high doses. Tried it for 7-8 months. I don't do water changes.

https://www.nyos.info/en/coralcare/bakterien-und-nährlösungen/bac (I always doubted these kinds of products as snake oil but was recommended by a friend)

https://www.brightwellaquatics.com/products/xport_no3_brick.php ( I keep this in the fuge in a low flow area covered up with a fairly large layer of siporax.

I've just had to reduce my fuge schedule from 16 hours a day to 12 and feed heavier as my Nitrates were 2 and Phosphate were 0.02!

Never thought I'd see those numbers considering how high my Nitrates were.

Good luck

Thank you. Ill look into these 2.

Ive setup 2 reactors with Maxspect Nanotech and Seachem Denitrate / Matrix and the brick looks like it should handle anaerobic removal of nitrate.

 

[SeaDweller]

I had 250 ppm+ NO3 at the beginning of the year. I had to do 4-5 50% water changes every few days totaling about 600 gallons on a 240. I got it down to like 25 ppm on water changes then I had my sulfur reactor do the rest.

You need to do your WC a few days apart.

 

[Blackened]

I don't know what an 100watt LED floodlight puts out but in my limited experience a powerful/proper fuge light is ridiculously good at removing nitrates. Something like the h380 or h160. Note that it could take weeks (more than 2) for the fuge to adjust.

Also, I don't want to speculate but, maybe vacuum out the sand every week, clean the filters, and really try to blow crap off of the rocks with a baster or super high flow (what other person said). Maybe want to slowly move a rock here and there to eventually get under everything. Get every last bit of detritus out of there!

I had a similar thing happen with elevated nitratesbut in a much smaller tank. While doing a 20% WC, I blew all the crud off my live rock (as others have suggested), replaces my carbon and purigen and that helped a lot. Now I try to blast or brush my rock when I WC.

Thanks guys. I will blast the rocks off regularly.

I added cups of sand around my rock scape so the rocks arent sitting on any sand. Considering going BB till this issue is resolved.

 

[Blackened]

I had 250 ppm+ NO3 at the beginning of the year. I had to do 4-5 50% water changes every few days totaling about 600 gallons on a 240. I got it down to like 25 ppm on water changes then I had my sulfur reactor do the rest.

You need to do your WC a few days apart.

touche!
Did 40G yesterday

 

[Blackened]

How old is the LR?

LR been known to absord NO3 and just keep leeching and leeching.

Two approaches:

* pull the LR and violently swoosh it in a 5g bucket of RODI

* take a strong powerhead and blow off your LR every other day. Put filter socks in place to catch the blown off debrus

Thanks.

 

[Auto-pilot]

The only thing I can suggest is supplementing iron to make the Cheto grow faster

 

[Blackened]

The only thing I can suggest is supplementing iron to make the Cheto grow faster

Great. Will do couple of drops of Flourish.