Battling nitrates, carbon dosing, need advice

[Biff0rz]

hey all, this has been a long battle for me, I cannot reduce nitrates (or just have not been able to successfully yet). Nyos and Hanna are both showing 40+ (57 by hanna). I run a skimmer and an ATS 24x7 - this skimmer is skimming well and the ATS is growing GHA. I also have a roller filter and it's been doing its thing. As for input I have been strictly measuring all food - 1 sheet of nori/day and 4 cubes of mysis - the mysis is gone in about ~1m or less.. I have a few tangs . Nothing else is being fed. Anyhow, I have started to dose carbon (vodka, 80 proof) and nitrates have not come down a bit. I am currently dosing 10ml/day. I read somewhere the max is 15ml/day for a ~250g setup. Is this correct? What do I do if no3 doesn't come down and I'm at 15ml/d? I am also planning to do another large water change (60%) to help get them down. I have been doing ~20% monthly water changes. I'm sort of stuck wondering what I can do to bring them down. I was going to start feeding every other day but this might increase aggression in the tank which would not be great.

Any advice?

 

[blaxsun]

First and foremost, what's the size of the tank and what's the reef complement? (number of fish, size, etc.) Second, is this a reef or FOWLR?

 

[sixty_reefer]

With all those tangs phosphates may not be an issue although I still gota ask for the residual phosphates, wile carbon dosing phosphates may affect nitrates if depleted.

 

[Biff0rz]

First and foremost, what's the size of the tank and what's the reef complement? (number of fish, size, etc.) Second, is this a reef or FOWLR?

233g display 60x30x30 with ~45g sump (using 1/2 of a 100g tank).

the tank has been running for 2+yrs
Fish:
Naso tang 7.5"
Purple tang 6"
Achilles tang 4"
Yellow tang 4"
Copperband butterfly 4"
Blue throat trigger 3.5"
Mandarin 2"
Potters pigmy angel 3"
Leopard Wrasse 2.5"
Clown 1"

 

[Biff0rz]

With all those tangs phosphates may not be an issue although I still gota ask for the residual phosphates, wile carbon dosing phosphates may affect nitrates if depleted.

po4 is at 0.13

 

[blaxsun]

What do you have for cleanup crew? Is this a reef tank (corals) or FOWLR?

 

[Biff0rz]

What do you have for cleanup crew? Is this a reef tank (corals) or FOWLR?

A bunch of snails and hermits. I also have two long spine urchins.

It's a reef tank but I don't have a lot of corals, trying to get no3 under control first. I have a few LPS (torch), Goni, and one sps monti that is doing well. Any acro will s/rtn due to the no3.

 

[Klyle]

For me, carbon dosing has always taken longer than a month to start working. I want to say closer to two months. Either way it’s dependent on consistency and patience. Crazy the ATS isn’t lowering them!

 

[EakTheFreak]

+1 @Klyle . I had nitrates at 60+ and started carbon dosing at 20 ML per day on a 131 gallon with 25 gallon refugium.

It took a solid 2-3 months before it started dropping then it plummeted. Just stay the course and test every couple days to be safe!!

It will happen with time!!

 

[Biff0rz]

For me, carbon dosing has always taken longer than a month to start working. I want to say closer to two months. Either way it’s dependent on consistency and patience. Crazy the ATS isn’t lowering them!

I've been going at it for a month, slowly ramping them. I started at 0.5ml/d which was likely not doing much. The ats has been on the tank for 6mo+ and it's pulling a lot of algea out but hasn't lowered them.

 

[Biff0rz]

+1 @Klyle . I had nitrates at 60+ and started carbon dosing at 20 ML per day on a 131 gallon with 25 gallon refugium.

It took a solid 2-3 months before it started dropping then it plummeted. Just stay the course and test every couple days to be safe!!

It will happen with time!!

What made you start at 20ml/d? I read for my tank size (250-275) I read the max I should dose is 15ml/d. Your tank is half the size but you started at 20? Some help about that would be greatly appreciated. I'm starting to think the chart I saw was incorrect.

Also forgot to mention that I'm now dosing during daylight hours with a versa pump (calibrated).

How fast did they fall? I'm trying to prevent a crash / zeroing hence going slow.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Without the carbon dosing, were your nitrates increasing? Or were you just uncomfortable with them being 50-60?

 

[Biff0rz]

Without the carbon dosing, were your nitrates increasing? Or were you just uncomfortable with them being 50-60?

I would do a w/c and bring them down 10-20pts then they would increase again sometimes slow, sometimes fast. When no3 increased my corals started getting unhappy - the Monti, an easy sps, started to brown/fade with no other changes to the system. Combine those factors and the ats/skimmer not doing the job plus the ratio between po4/no3 being far from ideal (100:1) I decided to start dosing carbon. Aka I tried doing all of the other things with consistency before beginning dosing.

 

[EakTheFreak]

What made you start at 20ml/d? I read for my tank size (250-275) I read the max I should dose is 15ml/d. Your tank is half the size but you started at 20? Some help about that would be greatly appreciated. I'm starting to think the chart I saw was incorrect.

Also forgot to mention that I'm now dosing during daylight hours with a versa pump (calibrated).

How fast did they fall? I'm trying to prevent a crash / zeroing hence going slow.

It all depends on where your tank started at. You can definitely dose higher than what they recommend you just have to be super careful to monitor your nitrates. My tank still runs on 10 ML’s per day today. It holds my nitrates at 8-15 PPM.

I feed super heavy, have around 18 fish & also dose Red Sea AB+ plus at high amount. Have the heavy in and heavy out approach.

I actually hooked it up to a doser so I don’t have to do it by hand.

 

[EakTheFreak]

Without the carbon dosing, were your nitrates increasing? Or were you just uncomfortable with them being 50-60?

They held steady around 45-60 but I was running GFO and my phosphates were always around .03-.07. I knew that was a bad nitrate to phosphate level so I wanted to have it closer to the red field ration.

Now I run phosphate closer to .08 - .12 and Nitrates sit around 8-15 PPM. I have a mixed reef with legit every type of coral lol. It is definitely the happy place for my tank.

Check it out on instagram @Eak_The_Freaks_Reef . Give it a follow!!!

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

They held steady around 45-60 but I was running GFO and my phosphates were always around .03-.07. I knew that was a bad nitrate to phosphate level so I wanted to have it closer to the red field ration.

Now I run phosphate closer to .08 - .12 and Nitrates sit around 8-15 PPM. I have a mixed reef with legit every type of coral lol. It is definitely the happy place for my tank.

Check it out on instagram @Eak_The_Freaks_Reef . Give it a follow!!!

Nice hijack

 

[Katherine Corals]

I try best to refrain from carbon dosing. Do you have a macroalgea section in the sump set up? Some cheato will bring nitrates back to your desired redfield ratio without effecting your PO4.
Feeding Nori is commonly known to increase Nitrate levels. Maybe compensate with a different food, or every other day instead?
Personally, 40ppm Nitrates are my target goal! I keep PO4 at 0.4 respectively to the red field ratio.
*Feel free to check out my build thread!!

 

[Kasrift]

They held steady around 45-60 but I was running GFO and my phosphates were always around .03-.07. I knew that was a bad nitrate to phosphate level so I wanted to have it closer to the red field ration.

Now I run phosphate closer to .08 - .12 and Nitrates sit around 8-15 PPM. I have a mixed reef with legit every type of coral lol. It is definitely the happy place for my tank.

Check it out on instagram @Eak_The_Freaks_Reef . Give it a follow!!!

Giving this a follow on instagram since I have the "pokemon" mentality for coral as well and have tons of different things.

 

[ナイトコア猫]

hey all, this has been a long battle for me, I cannot reduce nitrates (or just have not been able to successfully yet). Nyos and Hanna are both showing 40+ (57 by hanna). I run a skimmer and an ATS 24x7 - this skimmer is skimming well and the ATS is growing GHA. I also have a roller filter and it's been doing its thing. As for input I have been strictly measuring all food - 1 sheet of nori/day and 4 cubes of mysis - the mysis is gone in about ~1m or less.. I have a few tangs . Nothing else is being fed. Anyhow, I have started to dose carbon (vodka, 80 proof) and nitrates have not come down a bit. I am currently dosing 10ml/day. I read somewhere the max is 15ml/day for a ~250g setup. Is this correct? What do I do if no3 doesn't come down and I'm at 15ml/d? I am also planning to do another large water change (60%) to help get them down. I have been doing ~20% monthly water changes. I'm sort of stuck wondering what I can do to bring them down. I was going to start feeding every other day but this might increase aggression in the tank which would not be great.

Any advice?

For this to work, you will need phosphate. If phosphate has been depleted, you'll need to add phosphate somehow, which can be done either by phosphate-heavy food (generally dry pellets, not frozen things), what I prefer is to add it directly to the tank as a chemical, because it's predictable and fairly precise. Food products you have readily may be very biased to nitrate, which would lead you further from your goal. Kindly look at both of the dialogues here, and Randy Holmes-Farley's responses:

Disodium Phosphate mixing

Looking for advice on how much Disodium Phosphate to add to what amount of RODI to make something similar in concentration to NeoPhos? This is what I purchased off Amazon. Thanks in advance for any help.

www.reef2reef.com

Disodium Phosphate dosing calculator?

Anyone have a good dosing calculator for raising Po4 using Disodium Phosphate? All the calculators that I've run across are based on using Potassium Phosphate.

www.reef2reef.com

Note also that the phosphate you add, within 24 hours, may initially bind to substrate, and may continuously bind to kalk dosings.

I recommend reviewing KZ/Zeovit system instructions, if only to get a sense of how this kind of methodology works. Though you may elect not to commit to that methodology, it will be very informational. A key takeaway is to inject food sources (kindly make a note of the Zeovit reactor), as well as a being methodical—consistently and ramping at a reasonable pace (even with vodka, you can follow the KZ methodology as if you were using that carbon source).

There is much talk about the risk of bottoming out your nitrate or phosphate; that in the short term will pale to the issue of creating a bacterial bloom from overdose, which depending on things like temperature, can quickly deplete your water's oxygen and asphyxiate your poor pets.

KZ and other nitrate reduction techniques like ClearWater ATS or chaeo reactors require phosphate, even if the amount of phosphate consumed is very minimal—if phosphate is reduced to nothing, adding additional carbons (e.g., KZ, vinegar, alcohols, sugars), will not work; you'll need to replenish phosphate first.

 

[sixty_reefer]

po4 is at 0.13

Just give it some time for the bacteria to develop in that case, as others have suggested, carbon dosing has two effect in our system, one is to stimulate the pelagic bacteria at reducing no3 and some po4 and the second effect is to increase the heterotrophic bacteria responsible for decomposing trapped organic matter. If you don’t get far in the next month or so I would suggest you to change to diy nopox, there is peer reviewed papers that supports the use of carbohydrates (molasses and sugars) as very effective at promoting heterotrophic decomposers this would aid lowering nutrients by transferring the organic matter into the bacteria body mass that will be removed from your system via protein skimmer or by predatory organisms that feed on bacteria, transferring those nutrients into they’re body mass and so on.