Tank Consuming Nitrates Help?

[Juka087]

Hey Guys

So I have a nuvo 10 it holds 7.5 gallons of water. I have 11 pounds of dead rock in it. The tank has been running since october of last year. I have filter floss, and seachem matrix biomedia as filtration only. the past 3 weeks I have been dosing vibrant. The last dose of vibrant was last saturday. My nitrates have gone from 5 ppm to 1 ppm across 2 days. Is it possible that it is the vibrant doing this even though the last does was almost 7 days ago. Or is it the pretty good size of zoanthids in the tank doing this. Or could it be the seachem matrix biomedia doing this. Nitrate this morning was 1 ppm, and phosphate .03 ppm. This was done with a brand new nyos test kit, and a hanna phos with new reagents. two days before the results were 5 ppm nitrate, and .06 ppm phos. I have seachem nitrogen/phos. I dosed the tank to 5ppm nitrate and .05 ppm phos just now as I do not feel like worrying about the possibility of dinos from the nutrients bottoming out. Best not to wait. What would you guys do?

 

[andrewey]

My guesses would be 1) testing [interpretation/resolution/accuracy/error] or 2) incorporation via corals, in that order.

 

[Juka087]

My guesses would be 1) testing [interpretation/resolution/accuracy/error] or 2) incorporation via corals, in that order.

Would you just dose nitrate and phosphate to stabilize while continuing to dose vibrant?

 

[andrewey]

I would probably wait for someone else's experience with vibrant- I don't use the product myself so I can't really comment on what to expect. I know some have reported a reduction in nutrient levels using the product initially, followed by an increase in nutrients secondary to the death of algaes (releasing their nutrients back into the water column), but I'm unsure how common this trend is or what most do while dosing vibrant.

I was mostly commenting on my opinion for the likely cause of such a stark nutrient reduction. Third would be the consumption of nitrate/phosphate by the dosed heterotrophic bacteria.

 

[jstncoffman]

I use vibrant to keep my nitrates and alge in check, but also feeding organic foods for nitrates and flake and pellet food , reef roids , reef chili for phosphate, my feedings regiment is based off my tank nitrate and phosphate levels, but a good nitrate levels, I keep mine at 10 to 20 on nitrates and .05 phosphate, also make sure that your ammonia level is 0ppm vibrate does use its own bacteria to keep things going, BRS tv has a great section on vibrant products