Share your experience with Red Sea NOPOX

[IslandLifeReef]

Don't have the bandwidth or resources to clean my tank like that.

My coral seem to like the high nutrients

I have a deep sandbed. I only vacuum the surface.

Last time I checked on my couch I stirred up the sand bed and ended up with red slime bloom

How deep is that sand bed? From the pictures, it looks like only an inch or two. IMO, I wouldn't consider it a DSB unless it was 4+ inches deep.

You can clean your tank of most/all detritus without a lot of hassle. I took my sand vacuum and ran the hose to the sump. I put a filter sock in the sump and vacuumed the sand all the way to the bottom glass and put the water through the filter sock. Once the sock was full of detritus, I got another sock and started again. I did this until I could vacuum the sand and not see a cloud in the vacuum. I even temporarily moved rock and vacuumed under the rock.

I cleaned the rock by using my tank vacuum and a turkey baster. As I blew off the rock, I sucked up the water with detritus and followed the same method as vacuuming the sand. I completed the whole process without having to add any water to my tank. The whole process took about an hour for a 40 gallon tank.

It's great that your corals like the higher nutrients. The nutrients aren't the problem however. The problem I see is them getting outcompeted by the GHA. I also thought I saw some algae growing on a few of your corals in the pictures you provided. This is not good. The algae will eventually kill the coral. Algae doesn't grow on healthy parts of coral, only dead parts.

With your algae problem, I would recommend a thorough cleaning of the tank and sump. The quicker, the better. I have seen my tank, as well as others support a thriving field of GHA while dosing NoPoX and nutrient readings of undetectable. I just don't think that NoPoX will fix your issue. The high NO3 is a side effect of a larger problem IMO.

 

[ca1ore]

So what kind of nitrate/phosphate levels are we talking about? I’ve been toying with doing carbon dosing (with the diy formula) because my levels are elevated at 40 nitrate and 0.2 phosphate, but I don’t have any algae problems in the display because my fish eat it all. Corals grow a little slower, not a bad thing necessarily, but otherwise seem to tolerate the levels without other issues. If you properly feed a sizable fish population, it’s hard to keep up with export using more conventional mechanisms.

 

[DraggingTail]

How deep is that sand bed? From the pictures, it looks like only an inch or two. IMO, I wouldn't consider it a DSB unless it was 4+ inches deep.

You can clean your tank of most/all detritus without a lot of hassle. I took my sand vacuum and ran the hose to the sump. I put a filter sock in the sump and vacuumed the sand all the way to the bottom glass and put the water through the filter sock. Once the sock was full of detritus, I got another sock and started again. I did this until I could vacuum the sand and not see a cloud in the vacuum. I even temporarily moved rock and vacuumed under the rock.

I cleaned the rock by using my tank vacuum and a turkey baster. As I blew off the rock, I sucked up the water with detritus and followed the same method as vacuuming the sand. I completed the whole process without having to add any water to my tank. The whole process took about an hour for a 40 gallon tank.

It's great that your corals like the higher nutrients. The nutrients aren't the problem however. The problem I see is them getting outcompeted by the GHA. I also thought I saw some algae growing on a few of your corals in the pictures you provided. This is not good. The algae will eventually kill the coral. Algae doesn't grow on healthy parts of coral, only dead parts.

With your algae problem, I would recommend a thorough cleaning of the tank and sump. The quicker, the better. I have seen my tank, as well as others support a thriving field of GHA while dosing NoPoX and nutrient readings of undetectable. I just don't think that NoPoX will fix your issue. The high NO3 is a side effect of a larger problem IMO.

My sand bed is 3 in some places. So maybe not dsb

I like this idea

 

[DraggingTail]

So what kind of nitrate/phosphate levels are we talking about? I’ve been toying with doing carbon dosing (with the diy formula) because my levels are elevated at 40 nitrate and 0.2 phosphate, but I don’t have any algae problems in the display because my fish eat it all. Corals grow a little slower, not a bad thing necessarily, but otherwise seem to tolerate the levels without other issues. If you properly feed a sizable fish population, it’s hard to keep up with export using more conventional mechanisms.

20-40. I have not been able to get back down to 5 for some time now. My params in in the Google sheet below

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...RdChcCXN_XPrurixjkQD8e_pVVA/edit?usp=drivesdk

 

[saltyhog]

So what kind of nitrate/phosphate levels are we talking about? I’ve been toying with doing carbon dosing (with the diy formula) because my levels are elevated at 40 nitrate and 0.2 phosphate, but I don’t have any algae problems in the display because my fish eat it all. Corals grow a little slower, not a bad thing necessarily, but otherwise seem to tolerate the levels without other issues. If you properly feed a sizable fish population, it’s hard to keep up with export using more conventional mechanisms.

I've seen your tank....it ain't broke...don't fix it!

Seriously your corals have great color and are mature. I think the only thing you would improve with reducing nutrients would be growth rate and with your mature tank it may not be that important to you.

I like that you have a great herbivore population in your tank. I have a similar situation in a much younger tank. I have GHA and other algae by the handfuls in my over flow and sump but zero sign of them in the tank...thank you tangs/CUC.

 

[DraggingTail]

I've seen your tank....it ain't broke...don't fix it!

Seriously your corals have great color and are mature. I think the only thing you would improve with reducing nutrients would be growth rate and with your mature tank it may not be that important to you.

I like that you have a great herbivore population in your tank. I have a similar situation in a much younger tank. I have GHA and other algae by the handfuls in my over flow and sump but zero sign of them in the tank...thank you tangs/CUC.

I have a yellow kole tang I bought specifically for my clumps of gha
However, he doesn't touch it. So I feed him sheets of seaweed.....

 

[mattzang]

i've been using it for a few months now. between getting a better refugium light and this, i have brought my nitrates way down to <10 and now i just do 2-3 ml daily to maintain. i think you just want to be careful to not keep pouring it in if you've hit 0 no3

i also do gfo so i'm not really sure what effect it has on po4

when i had high nitrates i never really had an algae problem so i can't comment on people using it to remove an algae or something. i have yet to run into cyano or any of those uglies, if i do at this point it seems unlikely to be NoPoX at fault

 

[DraggingTail]

Is my algae not the type my coral beauty and Tang will eat?

The algae and fish are in the video below. The Tang eventually comes out around 2:28

 

[ca1ore]

I have a yellow kole tang I bought specifically for my clumps of gha
However, he doesn't touch it. So I feed him sheets of seaweed.....

Bristle tangs aren’t a good choice for hair algae; they’re more for film and slime alga. Surprised it’s even eating nori.

 

[ca1ore]

I've seen your tank....it ain't broke...don't fix it!

Seriously your corals have great color and are mature. I think the only thing you would improve with reducing nutrients would be growth rate and with your mature tank it may not be that important to you.

I like that you have a great herbivore population in your tank. I have a similar situation in a much younger tank. I have GHA and other algae by the handfuls in my over flow and sump but zero sign of them in the tank...thank you tangs/CUC.

Yup, yup and yup ..... lol

 

[Rorythe1st]

Were would the best place to sell a salt water tank in northern Ireland be? Any1 any good suggestions for sites?

 

[DraggingTail]

Bristle tangs aren’t a good choice for hair algae; they’re more for film and slime alga. Surprised it’s even eating nori.

I thought a Yellow Eye Kole Tang is #1 for eating algae

 

[ca1ore]

Not for hair algae. Zebrasoma genus or convict much more helpful.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I love it and have very good luck with it. I do however dose small and not according to recommendations as I am simply trying to control - NOT TREAT

 

[Bob Escher]

I dose it daily in my DOS 4 ML My problem is balancing nitrates and phosphates. Nitrates are down just fine but phosphates are a little high
But I love the product and have been using it for four years

 

[7237689918]

I'm not knowledgable to talk about the why, but I had high Nitrates (40-50) and got them down pretty quickly by 3x/week turning the flow up, blasting the sand/rocks with a baster, changing the sock daily, wet skimming, cutting back on feeding, and dosing 1/2 recommended value of NoPox. I still do it even though they are down. Although dosing NoPox even less now.

 

[DraggingTail]

Thanks for all the feedback!

 

[Mhart032]

I've used it, it worked good for temp solutions, but here is the issues I think most face when nutrient issues. Most comes down to the biodiversity and or lack of biodiversity with the bacteria and marine fauna like good pod populations and again the right bacteria. I'd hand remove all the algae you can, do a series of water changes along with some Dr tims waste away, then use his eco balance and start to build a healthy pod population as well as good bacteria strains. If you have the room a good fuge or a cheato reactor will help as well. But more than anything the "good bacteria" will help greatly. Just my ,02¢

 

[DraggingTail]

I've used it, it worked good for temp solutions, but here is the issues I think most face when nutrient issues. Most comes down to the biodiversity and or lack of biodiversity with the bacteria and marine fauna like good pod populations and again the right bacteria. I'd hand remove all the algae you can, do a series of water changes along with some Dr tims waste away, then use his eco balance and start to build a healthy pod population as well as good bacteria strains. If you have the room a good fuge or a cheato reactor will help as well. But more than anything the "good bacteria" will help greatly. Just my ,02¢

I have a fuge it's covered in cyano

 

[Wagonpitt]

I used nopox and hc Gfo. Nopox gets nitrates and some phosphates, hc gfo get the rest of phos.

Go slow at first and watch your nutrients.