Extremely frustrated, can't lower nitrates on established reef. Massive water changes, bacteria supplement, carbon dosing, chaeto...NOTHING WORKS!

[IslandLifeReef]

I’m 99% sure you can’t lower it because your PO4 is super low. It sounds counterintuitive, but dose phosphates, and the nopox will then lower the nitrates super fast. That said, if you manage to get the PO4 up to around 0.15-0.2, chances are your tank will look way too healthy for you to want to lower the values ever again

I agree, it sounds like you may be PO4 limited. I would dose PO4, and then let your chaeto take care of the NO3. Your chaeto should rebound with the PO4 dosing.

 

[Viking_Reefing]

I’m 99% sure you can’t lower it because your PO4 is super low. It sounds counterintuitive, but dose phosphates, and the nopox will then lower the nitrates super fast. That said, if you manage to get the PO4 up to around 0.15-0.2, chances are your tank will look way too healthy for you to want to lower the values ever again

Agreed, I would go with this route as well.
Imbalance between N and P is a pain!

 

[Larry L]

I've been experimenting with small daily doses of PNS Probio ( https://www.algaebarn.com/shop/aquarium-supplies/pns-probio/ ), it contains bacteria used in water treatment that are capable (among other things) of sequestering nitrates. My nitrates went from running around 10-15 to about 4 with no other changes to my routine. You could try a big initial dose, which they also recommend when starting up a new tank. Worse case it doesn't help with the nitrates but it makes great coral food anyway.

 

[wtac]

I totally disagree with this analogy. The only thing you need to worry about is dilution, not diffusion, unless you are doing a 100% water change. The fact of the matter is that water changes take many large changes to have a big impact on severely elevated readings. Implementing daily automated water changes will eventually lower elevated readings over time.

Dennis

Dilution is the direct physical result of a water change. Dismissing diffusion complicates matters if it is not factored in the overall plan of remediation.

Test the theory for yourself. Get a fist piece of dried out LR. Soak in fresh NSW for a day, discard water and soak in fresh NSW and test for NO3. This will be your control.

In another container of NSW and add enough KNO3 to get ~50mg/L NO3 and let soak for a week. This will simulate LR from a 50mg/L NO3 system.

Remove, dry off with a towel and soak in fresh NSW for a day and test for NO3. Repeat drying off and put in another container of fresh NSW for another day and test for NO3.

 

[2Wheelsonly]

So I decided to dose phosphates to get the number up by using Neophos. I have around 325G total tank volume. I says to increase 0.01 ppm I should dose 12ml for my tank size. Just to be safe I dosed 10 even. My p04 reading before dosage 0.010 and my reading after was 0.027. Not exact but that's also because I believe this hanna ULR leaves a LOT of room for error as it's not the simplest process.

Now fast forward two days (nothing else was dosed) and my p04 reading 0.110 (highest I have ever seen it in 4 years). I added nothing else and my nitrates are still 50.

I simply don't get it. I think this tank has just reached it's age limit and the die off will be part of nature. I am just going to leave it alone and let the corals all die naturally and start over once it's all dead and I can empty the tank. It's clear to me that there are things we still don't know scientifically about reef systems and the nitrates cannot be removed.

Just for educational purposes I am going to move my fish to a QT and see how large of a dose of vinegar these remaining colonies can handle starting at 500ml. Water changes are not the answer here. 5 boxes of 200G IO and it didn't even make a dent in my no3. I have literally changed over 1000G of water in 21 days.

 

[ScottB]

So I decided to dose phosphates to get the number up by using Neophos. I have around 325G total tank volume. I says to increase 0.01 ppm I should dose 12ml for my tank size. Just to be safe I dosed 10 even. My p04 reading before dosage 0.010 and my reading after was 0.027. Not exact but that's also because I believe this hanna ULR leaves a LOT of room for error as it's not the simplest process.

Now fast forward two days (nothing else was dosed) and my p04 reading 0.110 (highest I have ever seen it in 4 years). I added nothing else and my nitrates are still 50.

I simply don't get it. I think this tank has just reached it's age limit and the die off will be part of nature. I am just going to leave it alone and let the corals all die naturally and start over once it's all dead and I can empty the tank. It's clear to me that there are things we still don't know scientifically about reef systems and the nitrates cannot be removed.

Well .11 never hurt anybody, but I'd guess there was some test error involved. If I am not SUPER meticulous about clean cuvettes I get very noisy readings. And I test ALL the time due to dinos and dosing to defeat them.

Slowing down and allowing the system to do its thing is rarely bad advice. Hang in there.

 

[WVNed]

I would replace the sand bed. Keep dosing the phosphates and add 3ml Nopox per 25 gallons.
I only run about 3/4 inch of crushed coral now.

 

[ccombs]

Here is my experience, I have only been in the hobby for about a year and a half now, so do with this info what you will.

My tank consistently runs at 40ish ppm nitrates. All other parameters within 'normal' boundaries. I spent months in your position chasing everything. I tried NoPox, Chaeto, Aggressive Skimming, etc. and nothing worked. NoPox would get the numbers down, but they would shoot up to 40ppm the next day. A water change would get the numbers down, but literally the next morning they would be 40+. Corals did not look good with all the swings, rock was not maturing, I was having all sorts of frustrating problems, even when following best practices.

Finally, I got tired of it, and decided I would try living with 40ppm nitrates. Guess what, now that the tank has stability, my hammer and frogspawn have exploded. I am talking 1 small head to 6 large heads in just a few months. Zoas are flying off the frag plugs onto the rock. Acans opening up, Ricordia mushroom literally 4 inches across, a few months ago it was the size of a dime at best. I would focus on stability unless you are seeing negative results of nitrates in the tank.

 

[DarthSimon]

Have you ever considered a Turf Scrubber?

 

[Thespammailaccount]

I'm still not sold on my po4 testing, earlier this morning my hanna says 0.05 po4 and now it says 4pbb which is 0.0010 (very low). I tested 3 times and it's 4, 7, 4, 3.

Since my nitrates are so high could my po4 being so low that bacteria can't break down the nitrates? I also have 0 algae visible in the tank, other than cyano my rocks and sad are perfectly clean (as are the tank walls). I would think i'd have algae problems with these nitrate readings. My coral colors are so dull.

I carbon dosed for a while on the 10 gallon nitrates were high phosphates almost undetectable. Carbon dosing will not work at lowering nitrates without phosphates present

 

[2Wheelsonly]

Here is my experience, I have only been in the hobby for about a year and a half now, so do with this info what you will.

My tank consistently runs at 40ish ppm nitrates. All other parameters within 'normal' boundaries. I spent months in your position chasing everything. I tried NoPox, Chaeto, Aggressive Skimming, etc. and nothing worked. NoPox would get the numbers down, but they would shoot up to 40ppm the next day. A water change would get the numbers down, but literally the next morning they would be 40+. Corals did not look good with all the swings, rock was not maturing, I was having all sorts of frustrating problems, even when following best practices.

Finally, I got tired of it, and decided I would try living with 40ppm nitrates. Guess what, now that the tank has stability, my hammer and frogspawn have exploded. I am talking 1 small head to 6 large heads in just a few months. Zoas are flying off the frag plugs onto the rock. Acans opening up, Ricordia mushroom literally 4 inches across, a few months ago it was the size of a dime at best. I would focus on stability unless you are seeing negative results of nitrates in the tank.

Normally I have never ever cared about nutrients in my tank, ULNS are a headache to maintain IMO but this is the first time in 4 years that my corals are responding poorly. All of my green acros are turning dark purple (or maybe brown but it looks dark purple to me) and PE is gone. When I have seen stuff like this in the past it usually means death. The only thing keeping me from throwing everything in the trash is that my red planet/orange passion and some other color corals still look decent. My hot pink magenta mili turned green and my green acros are turning purple/brown. Strawberry shortcake colony is so badly STN'd that I don't even know if there is anything left to frag.

If I leave this thing alone it will only get worse; i'm convinced of that. Since I can't make it better after trying just about everything possible I am going to experiment with extreme doses just to see what happens since it's most likely done anyway.

 

[2Wheelsonly]

I carbon dosed for a while on the 10 gallon nitrates were high phosphates almost undetectable. Carbon dosing will not work at lowering nitrates without phosphates present

Check my response a few posts back, I took the advice of dosing po4 (very small dose) and the test run after showed an increase after doing of 0.01 but for some reason two days later after doing nothing it's now a very high 0.10 but my no3 hasn't dropped at all.

 

[ccombs]

Normally I have never ever cared about nutrients in my tank, ULNS are a headache to maintain IMO but this is the first time in 4 years that my corals are responding poorly. All of my green acros are turning dark purple (or maybe brown but it looks dark purple to me) and PE is gone. When I have seen stuff like this in the past it usually means death. The only thing keeping me from throwing everything in the trash is that my red planet/orange passion and some other color corals still look decent. My hot pink magenta mili turned green and my green acros are turning purple/brown. Strawberry shortcake colony is so badly STN'd that I don't even know if there is anything left to frag.

If I leave this thing alone it will only get worse; i'm convinced of that. Since I can't make it better after trying just about everything possible I am going to experiment with extreme doses just to see what happens since it's most likely done anyway.

Ah, I missed the part where the tank was not doing well. Sorry for your troubles.

 

[Thespammailaccount]

I carbon dosed for a while on the 10 gallon nitrates were high phosphates almost undetectable. Carbon dosing will not work at lowering nitrates without phosphates present

Normally I have never ever cared about nutrients in my tank, ULNS are a headache to maintain IMO but this is the first time in 4 years that my corals are responding poorly. All of my green acros are turning dark purple (or maybe brown but it looks dark purple to me) and PE is gone. When I have seen stuff like this in the past it usually means death. The only thing keeping me from throwing everything in the trash is that my red planet/orange passion and some other color corals still look decent. My hot pink magenta mili turned green and my green acros are turning purple/brown. Strawberry shortcake colony is so badly STN'd that I don't even know if there is anything left to frag.

If I leave this thing alone it will only get worse; i'm convinced of that. Since I can't make it better after trying just about everything possible I am going to experiment with extreme doses just to see what happens since it's most likely done anyway.

do not increase carbon dosing stop the carbon dosing you do not have enough available phosphates the system is currently very unstable and a crash is certain if you continue dosing

 

[2Wheelsonly]

do not increase carbon dosing stop the carbon dosing you do not have enough available phosphates the system is currently very unstable and a crash is certain if you continue dosing

Is there any way to know this for sure? I just test 3 times with hanna ULR and it shows 34pbb, 33pbb, and 34pbb which is 1.0po4. If that's not a true indicator of how much po4 is available I am wondering why we even spend time measuring it.

 

[Thespammailaccount]

Check my response a few posts back, I took the advice of dosing po4 (very small dose) and the test run after showed an increase after doing of 0.01 but for some reason two days later after doing nothing it's now a very high 0.10 but my no3 hasn't dropped at all.

0.10 is not that bad if nitrates are 50 should be enough to start lowering nitrates I hear carbon dosing you have to give it some time I ended up stoping the carbon dosing experiment on the ten gallon so if it will lower nitrates I am not sure beyond this point. I have a large refugium with mangroves and a diy cheato reactor

 

[Thespammailaccount]

Is there any way to know this for sure? I just test 3 times with hanna ULR and it shows 34pbb, 33pbb, and 34pbb which is 1.0po4. If that's not a true indicator of how much po4 is available I am wondering why we even spend time measuring it.

I was referring to your post with phosphates at almost undetectable levels

 

[Lasse]

Have you check your nitrites? Rather low nitrites result in high nitrate readings. Often 50 to 100 times higher. It means that 0.5 in NO2 will result in NO3 readings of 25 to 50 ppm.

Clean your valves for the phosphorus measurement with citric acid. My ULR Phosphate (HI774) shows around + 0.08 compared with results from TRITON ICP tests. I do not rely total on this checkers below 0.1 ppm

Sincerely Lasse

 

[2Wheelsonly]

Have you check your nitrites? Rather low nitrites result in high nitrate readings. Often 50 to 100 times higher. It means that 0.5 in NO2 will result in NO3 readings of 25 to 50 ppm.

Clean your valves for the phosphorus measurement with citric acid. My ULR Phosphate (HI774) shows around + 0.08 compared with results from TRITON ICP tests. I do not rely total on this checkers below 0.1 ppm

Sincerely Lasse

I only have an API test kit for nitrites; it always tests blue (0). I just assume that in an established reef you will never really detect nitrites.

 

[dwest]

I still think you were phosphate limited at some point. I would keep phosphates elevated for a few months. I bet nitrates will come down, but it takes time.