Seachem Matrix Nitrate Consumption Please Help.

[Juka087]

Lately I have been dosing vibrant 1 time per week. I use .7 ml per dose. I have been testing my nitrates, and phosphates everyday. The tank is consuming 2 ppm nitrate, and .02 phos per day. This consumption is even days after a vibrant dose. I am kind of sick of testing the tank every single day. then dosing nitrates etc. The tank is a nuvo 10 thats holds 7.5 gallons of water. I try to keep nitrates at 5ppm and phos at .05 ppm. The only thing I can think of that would be constantly consuming nitrates, and phosphates in the tank would be the seachem matrix that I have in the media rack. Since the very start of this tank. I have had issues with keeping nitrates, and phosphates in the tank. Should I just remove my seachem matrix, and see what happens? The tank has no other real filtration aside from 1 piece of filter floss that is changed weekly. The live rock structure within the tank weighs 12 lbs. Perhaps I just have to much biological filtration media.



PS- How would I tag randy holmes-farley so he could possibly ready this, and give some advice? I am kind of a noob.

 

[jda]

The N is likely getting consumed by the anoxic bacteria - these could live in the media, rock, sand or some where else. If you remove some of it, the populations in other areas will multiply to meet the need.

The P is likely binding to sand and rock.

Both will level out to an equilibrium if you stop dosing them. The whole point is that the sand/rock binds a bit of P and holds a reservoir so that you don't get to true zero - anything above true zero is fine. The anoix bacteria will eat most of the N, but also not take it to zero since it needs some to keep the equilibrium moving forward. I have never seen a tank using natural methods ever get to true-zero on either N or P - it takes media or chemicals, which are usually bad.

Not sure how the vibrant comes into play, but this is not an everyday type of treatment. I would strongly consider evaluating your usage of an algaecide - I know that they say that it is some magic bacteria that has no shelf life and will not multiply in tanks (like somehow they got it to), but it is more likely an algaecide since it acts just like API Algaefix and many others.

 

[Juka087]

The N is likely getting consumed by the anoxic bacteria - these could live in the media, rock, sand or some where else. If you remove some of it, the populations in other areas will multiply to meet the need.

The P is likely binding to sand and rock.

Both will level out to an equilibrium if you stop dosing them. The whole point is that the sand/rock binds a bit of P and holds a reservoir so that you don't get to true zero - anything above true zero is fine. The anoix bacteria will eat most of the N, but also not take it to zero since it needs some to keep the equilibrium moving forward. I have never seen a tank using natural methods ever get to true-zero on either N or P - it takes media or chemicals, which are usually bad.

Not sure how the vibrant comes into play, but this is not an everyday type of treatment. I would strongly consider evaluating your usage of an algaecide - I know that they say that it is some magic bacteria that has no shelf life and will not multiply in tanks (like somehow they got it to), but it is more likely an algaecide since it acts just like API Algaefix and many others.

See thats the thing. People get dinos of they do not dose n and p. If they bottom out during vibrant treatment thats very very bad. So i do not know what to do.

 

[jda]

People get dinos from the lack of biodiversity with tanks started with dead/dry rock. They growth limit and poison them with the N and P as a "fix." It is hard to fix the root cause once you are down a path, but buying some real live rock (AQ from gulf or fiji) takes care of most of this.

Dinos, fish diseases, diatoms, cyano (to a degree since all tanks get it from time to time) are not covered in the BRS videos on dry rock, or the many posts, but people create a perfect environment for them to thrive.