Nitrates----Please Reply

[libertyfalls]

I have been involved in salt water reefing for about 1-2 yrs, unfortunately my tank had a break down due to the lights and I had to revamp everything. I had a few corals perish in that process, My question is the nitrates are at about 80ppm, ive done numerous water changes along w/a vodka dosing method, however I have not seen much change I also have a deep sand bed in my tank I am worried about this due to the fact a member of the reefers club that I am a part of had to tear down his tank remove the sand and start freash.... (I Hope) This is not what I will have to do....

 

[sureal00]

You can go aggressive and do 3 50% water changes or so within 3 days(1 per day) or something like a 50 % water change followed by a couple 25 % water changes in about a week time.


How much corals and fishes you have

 

[LetItReef]

less feeding too.

 

[SeahorseKeeper]

What is your method for testing? Do you run a skimmer? How often are the water changes and how large? What is the tank size? Do you have any macroalgae?

 

[Reefing Madness]

The reason why your Nitrates are not coming down yet, via vodka dosing, is that your not at a high enough doseage yet.
Give me your tank size, and I'll guesstimate what your knock down number would be.

 

[kacrocorals581]

are you using ro/di water? have you test the water your using and have you cross tested the water with another test kit?

 

[Decalf]

I had Nitrates well over 100 ppm and carbon dosing brought it to zero in 16 weeks. What is your phosphates at?

 

[JimWelsh]

I can attest that vodka dosing can be very effective at reducing nitrate. It may take patience. At first, nothing seems to be happening. At a certain tipping point, though, nitrate will dramatically drop.