Nitrates to high.

marcus aurelius · Aug 31, 2018

@Randy Holmes-Farley
Yes I do have the same problem nitrates high.
40+. So I have a 125 gal tank. 3 small wrasses 2 clown fish, scopas tang, mandarin goby, lawnmower blenny. It has been going on for a few months. I do auto water changes. And I have been doing 40 gallon water changes every two weeks and no change. I have recently seen some corals not looking so good. I have added a bio pellet reactor a few weeks ago. Lost a fish today. Red tail wrasse. I've even added some mangroves to my sump along with more chaeto. Not sure what to do. Please help.

ndrwater · Aug 31, 2018

Nitrates at 40 aren't all that bad.. the issue is the ratio if Phosohate to Nitrate. If things really get it of whack, then things can go sideways. The ratio is riughlr 5/1 Nitrate to Phosphate. I doubt that Nitrate was the cause if fish death, and I would look elsewhere for the cause. Corals, I would look to the aforementioned ratio, lighting, flow or pests.

pdxmonkeyboy · Aug 31, 2018

are you using RODI water? what kind of light do you have on your chaeto? What size skimmer do you have?

I have read that mangroves grow too slow to be effective at reducing nitrates. I changed my chaeto light from a regular small bulb to an AI prime and saw a big jump in growth and reduction in nitrates.

You could also try to jump start your biopellet reactor by adding some bacteria to the tank...

marcus aurelius · Aug 31, 2018

Brian Bieger said:
are you using RODI water? what kind of light do you have on your chaeto? What size skimmer do you have?

I have read that mangroves grow too slow to be effective at reducing nitrates. I changed my chaeto light from a regular small bulb to an AI prime and saw a big jump in growth and reduction in nitrates.

You could also try to jump start your biopellet reactor by adding some bacteria to the tank...

Yes I am using RODI water, 0 TDS. I also have a AI prime on my refugium. I have some DR Tim's would that work? I'm using a reef octopus BR-140 reactor. With the 1000 ML NPX BIOPLASTICS

marcus aurelius · Aug 31, 2018

ndrwater said:
Nitrates at 40 aren't all that bad.. the issue is the ratio if Phosohate to Nitrate. If things really get it of whack, then things can go sideways. The ratio is riughlr 5/1 Nitrate to Phosphate. I doubt that Nitrate was the cause if fish death, and I would look elsewhere for the cause. Corals, I would look to the aforementioned ratio, lighting, flow or pests.

Well there should not be any pests in the tank. My tank just went follow for 80 days cause of an ick breakout, killed all my fish. Now have a pretty strict QT system for all fish going into the display. Red tail was in QT for 5 weeks with copper and no signs of disease. And eating well.

chipmunkofdoom2 · Sep 1, 2018

Bio-pellets should handle the nitrates without issue. You will need some phosphates present for the bio-pellets to work though. Do you test for phosphates, and do you know what level your tank has? A high quality skimmer is also important, as that's how the actual nutrient reduction happens with organic carbon dosing (which bio-pellets is).

Randy Holmes-Farley · Sep 1, 2018

I agree. Do you know the phosphate level? If it is too low, the chaeto won't lower nitrate.

marcus aurelius · Sep 1, 2018

Phosphate’s are at 0 am have been for a while. I’m using eshopps s-200 skimmer and reef octopus 140 bio pellet reactor. With two little fishes bio pellets