Red Sea NO3:PO4-X Nitrate & Phosphate Reducer. Help!!!!

[Prince_Tony]

I use Red Sea NO3O4-X Nitrate & Phosphate Reducer in my 180G Reef tank. I also have a refugium and sump giving me 230 gallons minus rock and sand I estimated 160 gallons water volume. My nitrates are zero but my Phosphates seem to be rising. I use 20ml/day of the red Sea Reducer. Should I be using more. Does anyone know how to use this product? Please help me.

 

[jvb89]

Nitrates shouldn't be zero. It says in the instructions that if you hit zero on nitrates or phosphate to cut the lowest dose in half. Your lowest dose should be 7ml for your tank size (1ml per 25g of water). So dose 3ml daily until you see nitrates come up a bit. What is your phosphate at?

 

[morpheas]

In my experience carbon dosing by itself will do wonders for nitrates but cannot completely control phosphates. For that you probably need to run another system like a gfo reactor for instance.

As mentioned, having nitrates at zero is not good so you need to tweak your dose first to register a few ppm of nitrates and then fine tune your phosphate after that...

 

[Junbug0024]

I think that is great as a nitrate reducer, but not great for phosphate reduction. Use another method for phosphate reduction. I use nopox but only dose like 2 ml for 67 gallon system, then I use phosguard for phosphate reduction.

 

[Diesel]

You starving your bacteria population with no No3's.
Either back off on the product and let your No3 come back up by feeding your fish a few times extra or dose straight No3 and some bacteria to help that balanced out.
When you bring up your No3 your Po4 most likely will go down.
Check out your skimmer too if it's working 100%, maybe tweak it bit for better skim.

 

[Wilsoni]

What is your P04 level currently? Any cyano or problematic algae?

 

[Wilsoni]

Either back off on the product and let your No3 come back up by feeding your fish a few times extra or dose straight No3 and some bacteria to help that balanced out.

I fully agree with this, your system is probably out of balance. I dose NoPox along with MB7 as a second bacteria source and feed heavily to keep things balanced. If you're truly at 0 I would bring it up a bit.

NoPox is awesome but you need to follow the steps carefully and adjust your dose accordingly.

 

[fishview]

I was on the same boat as you are. NO3 is zero and PO4 is high and dosing NOPOX. I have a large system ( >360 gallon), so it will be expensive to use GFO. What I am doing now is dosing sodium nitrate. It is working very good for me, and my PO4 is about 0.03-0.05. There should be a few good threads about dosing nitrate to reduce phosphate.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/nitrate-dosing.174396/
Good luck.

-Peter