NOPOX dosage

[ReefersDelite]

I'm starting my NOPOX regime and I have a 45 gallon AIO. I was dosing 2ml a day and my NO3 was very low but my PO4 was very high so I increased the dose to 3ml a day. This was Sunday and starting yesterday and today at 3ml I get a bacteria bloom. So my question is this. Can I stretch out my doses through out the day and avoid the blooms? If so is is best to dose with lights off or does it matter?

 

[Hitman]

Personally I’ve found NoPox works wonders for Nitrates but did nothing for Phosphate in my tank. You definitely can dose it in several small doses spread out through the day. As for time of day to dose I found it was best in early morning and afternoon as if I dose after lights out I felt that it upset my corals.

 

[ReefersDelite]

Personally I’ve found NoPox works wonders for Nitrates but did nothing for Phosphate in my tank. You definitely can dose it in several small doses spread out through the day. As for time of day to dose I found it was best in early morning and afternoon as if I dose after lights out I felt that it upset my corals.

Thank you. I'm also running a little GFO and carbon in a reactor. I may just bump that up too.

 

[User1]

When I was dosing NoPox I followed the directions for a mixed reef to get the initial dose then cut it back to a 3rd and started there for the first week. I was testing both Nitrate and Phosphate every three days or twice a week I guess. After the first week I increased the dose and repeated measurements. I increased again and by about the 3rd week I started to see both Nitrate and Phosphates go down. So now I had numbers, checked my dose amount, adjusted based on the reading again for mixed reef and started week 4. By now Nitrates which started over 50 had dropped down to 5 ppm and Phosphates .06. By the time I was done Nitrates held steady at 5 ppm but Phosphates went to 0 using Hanna's checker. Knowing that was + or - I decided to stop and see what happens now when I don't dose or hold it in maintenance mode.

Nitrates more or less are holding steady but phosphates are slowing increasing but nothing that I'm personally concerned about at about .16 - .20. The stuff does work but everything I've read suggested to start slow and lower than what the instructions recommended. Take measurements twice a week, increase then repeat. You can dose at different times although I recall doing mine daily between 12 and 1 pm.

 

[ReefersDelite]

When I was dosing NoPox I followed the directions for a mixed reef to get the initial dose then cut it back to a 3rd and started there for the first week. I was testing both Nitrate and Phosphate every three days or twice a week I guess. After the first week I increased the dose and repeated measurements. I increased again and by about the 3rd week I started to see both Nitrate and Phosphates go down. So now I had numbers, checked my dose amount, adjusted based on the reading again for mixed reef and started week 4. By now Nitrates which started over 50 had dropped down to 5 ppm and Phosphates .06. By the time I was done Nitrates held steady at 5 ppm but Phosphates went to 0 using Hanna's checker. Knowing that was + or - I decided to stop and see what happens now when I don't dose or hold it in maintenance mode.

Nitrates more or less are holding steady but phosphates are slowing increasing but nothing that I'm personally concerned about at about .16 - .20. The stuff does work but everything I've read suggested to start slow and lower than what the instructions recommended. Take measurements twice a week, increase then repeat. You can dose at different times although I recall doing mine daily between 12 and 1 pm.

Great info from all. That's why I come here.

 

[SPR1968]

You will find as already said that Nopox works very well at Nitrate reduction, but less so at phosphate, and this is the reason that many of us use GFO in addition to Nopox for the phosphate control. I personally use rhowaphos in a reactor and it keeps phosphate locked down at around 0.03 so very low. I haven’t had any issues since doing this and have zero algae or any other problems.

If your nitrate is already very low, increasing the Nopox wont or is unlikely bring down the phosphate and this is probably why increasing the dose is causing the bacterial blooms, which in my case is a white slime in areas of low flow. I just back of a ml or so when this happens or you can increase flow (ripple the water) were the slim occurs which is what I do when using higher doses.

You should be ‘wet skimming’ which will help, but you don’t want to drive nitrate to 0 by using to much Nopox so you may need to look at other measures, like GFO to get phosphate down.

I had green algae issues when phosphate hit 0.16ppm whilst relying on Nopox alone before introducing rhowaphos

I also use the Hanna checker and am also quiet happy if it reads 0, due to the potential small error margin with it.

 

[Dan_P]

What did the bloom look like?