Safely remove MarinePure Plate for NO3 increase?

kinetic · Jan 17, 2018

I have a Red Sea Reefer 170. About 45 gallons of total system water.

My NO3 has been undetectable forever, and I believe it could be due to my MarinePure ceramic plate.

I have minimal rockwork (about 10lbs max), about 1.5" sand bed (24"x20" area), 8watt UV sterlizer, and a skimmer that works well.

I have never been able to grow chaeto from a reactor, and my algae is pretty minimal. I am probably battling a slight bought of dinos right now.

So the big question is: is it worth removing the marinepure ceramic plate? Will that even theoretically help? Will it create some other problems (like another mini cycle)?

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jan 17, 2018

kinetic said:
I have a Red Sea Reefer 170. About 45 gallons of total system water.

My NO3 has been undetectable forever, and I believe it could be due to my MarinePure ceramic plate.

I have minimal rockwork (about 10lbs max), about 1.5" sand bed (24"x20" area), 8watt UV sterlizer, and a skimmer that works well.

I have never been able to grow chaeto from a reactor, and my algae is pretty minimal. I am probably battling a slight bought of dinos right now.

So the big question is: is it worth removing the marinepure ceramic plate? Will that even theoretically help? Will it create some other problems (like another mini cycle)?

I'd remove it, yes. Might be a small cycle. Do you have a lot of fish?

Jose Mayo · Jan 17, 2018

kinetic said:
I have a Red Sea Reefer 170. About 45 gallons of total system water.

My NO3 has been undetectable forever, and I believe it could be due to my MarinePure ceramic plate.

I have minimal rockwork (about 10lbs max), about 1.5" sand bed (24"x20" area), 8watt UV sterlizer, and a skimmer that works well.

I have never been able to grow chaeto from a reactor, and my algae is pretty minimal. I am probably battling a slight bought of dinos right now.

So the big question is: is it worth removing the marinepure ceramic plate? Will that even theoretically help? Will it create some other problems (like another mini cycle)?

You can also try to remove only part, of the Marine Pure ceramic plate.

Cornerboy · Jan 17, 2018

Bump. Following

kinetic · Jan 17, 2018

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
I'd remove it, yes. Might be a small cycle. Do you have a lot of fish?

Yup. And a magnifica anemone, and two BTAs. The bioload has never been an issue, but I am worried without the marinepure block, I might get a bit of a cycle.

Jose Mayo said:
You can also try to remove only part, of the Marine Pure ceramic plate.

That's a good idea, though I hate to break the plate. The plate is already crumbling on one corner that I smashed. What I think I'll do is seed the tank with a handful of MarinePure ceramic spheres. Remove the plate, and slowly remove the spheres until my nitrates are at a level I like. I bought the spheres during black friday just in case, so maybe this will be a good use of it.

kinetic · Jan 18, 2018

OK, day 0:

Ammonia: 0
Nitrites: 0
Nitrates: 0
Phosphates: 5 ppb
Ca: 440
Alk: 7.98 dKH
Mg: 1680 ppm

I'll remove the plate now. Let's see how it goes. I'll test again in 24 hours.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jan 18, 2018

Sounds good!

kinetic · Jan 20, 2018

I actually didn't pull the marinepure plate until yesterday. So here's day 0 and day 1:

Day 0:
Ammonia: 0
Nitrites: 0
Nitrates: 0
Phosphates: 0 (strange it went to zero from the previous day, maybe testing error)

Day 1:
Ammonia: 0
Nitrates: 0
Phosphates: 5 ppb

Slight increase in phosphates, but maybe it has to do with a testing error or the fact that it was a day after a water change. I'll test again tomorrow at the same time to see if I make any progress in the NO3/PO4 department. I decided to skip testing Nitrites today. Don't really think that's going to move.

kinetic · Jan 20, 2018

Day 2:
Ammonia: 0
Nitrates: 0
Phosphates: 7 ppb

At least my phosphates are increasing.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jan 21, 2018

Long term, I wouldn't expect removing Marinepure to boost phosphate much if nitrate is not rising.

Sagecritter4life · Jan 21, 2018

Just following but I have removed a marine pure (but I run two) plate several times from my sump to start a new QT tank bio filter and so far no signs of any negativity and very little bump in NO3 but I have real light bioload to begin with so not sure for your situation

kinetic · Jan 21, 2018

I'm kind of bummed that I haven't seen any increase in NO3 after removing the MarinePure plate. It could be that the dinos/algae in the tank are still consuming what's available.

I'll wait another day to see if anything increases.

kinetic · Jan 22, 2018

Day 3:

Phosphates: 12ppb
Nitrates: 0

So my phosphates are slowly climbing. At least *something* good is happening. But not sure why my nitrates are still staying 0.

My Autofeeder is feeding twice a day, and I'm feeing a whole cube of PE Mysis every day (including dumping in the thawed water). I'm using DT water, RO/DI everything (with 0 tds, fairly new filters and membrane).

Tomorrow, if there are still no nitrates, I'll start feeding amino acids and coral foods.

Cire · Jan 22, 2018

You can dose nitrate directly. That may be a more precise and expedient way to increase NO3 short term rather than feeding.

kinetic · Jan 22, 2018

Cire said:
You can dose nitrate directly. That may be a more precise and expedient way to increase NO3 short term rather than feeding.

That will definitely be my next step if none of the other solutions work.

The only things that are exporting my NO3/PO4 right now:
1. Skimmer (before things can even turn into ammonia)
2. Dinos/algae
3. My tiny SPS frags
4. Small filter cup's filter pads that I throw out every week

Next moves:
1. Turn on skimmer for only 12 hours
2. Start dosing AA daily (1.5ml of Poly-booster, eventually moving to a dosing pump solution if it helps)
3. Dose Reef Chili into the tank every 3 days
4. Stop dosing AA/Reef Chili and just dose straight NO3/PO4.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jan 22, 2018

Bacterial denitrification can also be exporting nitrate.

kinetic · Jan 22, 2018

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
Bacterial denitrification can also be exporting nitrate.

Yes! My guess was the marinepure plate that had the bacteria that would do it. But removing that hasn't changed anything. Would my sandbed or rock also be a cause? My sandbed is actually about 1" or 1.5" deep. I vacuum the sandbed up quite a bit these days with weekly water changes, so I'm sure it's getting a lot of oxygen through it.