High nitrates

[eland]

I need some help controlling nitrates in a aggresive mixed reef.

The tank is 4' x 8' x 16" and is about 320 gallons with a 100 gallon sump. In the sump I have chaeto and a RDSB. I am running 2 - 7" filter socks, Reeflo Orca pro1, Emperor Aquatics 80W smart HO UV sterilizer and a next reef reactor with GFO.

In the tank I have a 10" blonde Naso tang, 6" Vlamingii tang, 5" Harliquin Tusk,
5" Red Breast Maori Wrasse, A pair of Crosshatch Triggers about 9", 12" Golden tail eel, 4" blue head wrasse and a 8" cat banded shark. I am feeding frozen food every other day and spectrum pellets every day. I also have some anemones, SPS and LPS corals in the tank.

Everything looks great and growing but I can't get the Nitrates down below 40and Phosphates are about .35.

I am open to suggestions so any help would be welcomed.

 

[FishLipz]

Maybe run a reactor with the polymer bio pellets.

 

[Harry_Y]

Build yourself an algae scrubber

(do a Google search for info)

 

[eland]

Maybe run a reactor with the polymer bio pellets.

I am running another tank with Ecobak and they work great but I am running the UV sterilizer on my 320 and read somewhere it wouldn't be a good idea to run both. I may be wrong.

 

[_Alex_]

How often and what size of water changes are you doing?

 

[eland]

How often and what size of water changes are you doing?

5 gallons a day

 

[benny z]

5 gallons is a tiny percentage of your total water volume, so you are only diluting nitrates by that % per day.

a 50% water change w/ 0 tds water will reduce nitrates by 50%. it is a directly proportional.

 

[eland]

5 gallons is a tiny percentage of your total water volume, so you are only diluting nitrates by that % per day.

a 50% water change w/ 0 tds water will reduce nitrates by 50%. it is a directly proportional.

Are you saying its better to do 1 large water change per week instead of every day? If so I will do a large WC tonight and see what happens. My next step would be to how soon the Nitrates start to climb back up.

 

[_Alex_]

do biger daily changes 25-50gal a day and you will see better results, 5gal like said isnt even 1% of your total volume so not going to benefit from it. Larger change will be more effective. 7 days of 50gal wil be 100% change out. At 5 gal a day will take 70 days for 100% change out.

 

[eland]

do biger daily changes 25-50gal a day and you will see better results, 5gal like said isnt even 1% of your total volume so not going to benefit from it. Larger change will be more effective. 7 days of 50gal wil be 100% change out. At 5 gal a day will take 70 days for 100% change out.

Thanks I will give it a try starting tonight. I'll keep you posted on the results.

 

[benny z]

sounds good!

fwiw, 40ppm nitrates isn't TOO terrible. get it down to 20ppm and that's acceptable imo...esp considering your bioload. one 50% wc will get you to 20ppm.

 

[46gReef]

In my experience in general it is better to do small water changes more frequently unless your battling high nitrates, I would recommend doing a series of large(30-40%) water changes every other day until you get the nitrates down, then resume your daily water changes (at least 5%) to maintain an acceptable level.....that's always worked for me......

 

[eland]

In my experience in general it is better to do small water changes more frequently unless your battling high nitrates, I would recommend doing a series of large(30-40%) water changes every other day until you get the nitrates down, then resume your daily water changes (at least 5%) to maintain an acceptable level.....that's always worked for me......

Thats what I always thought. Oops went back and reread the post and missed the part that said "unless your battling high nitrates"

 

[Jcr's Reef]

+1 on the bigger water change until they come down. Just make sure your RO water has 0 TDS or you'll be adding more too it

 

[joejoe1055]

also remeber to keep those filter socks clean

 

[eland]

+1 on the bigger water change until they come down. Just make sure your RO water has 0 TDS or you'll be adding more too it

My RO/DI is 0 TDS. I think most of my Nitrate problems comes from fish waste

 

[eland]

also remeber to keep those filter socks clean

I change out my filter socks when the water stops flowing thru the sock and thats about every 3 days

 

[nixer]

what size sand do you have?

 

[eland]

what size sand do you have?

The sand bed in the tank is at least 3" and the RDSB I just set up is about 5-6"

 

[beaslbob]

My RO/DI is 0 TDS. I think most of my Nitrate problems comes from fish waste

+1

IMHO the best way to control nutrients like nitrates is to increase the consumers of those nutrients. In that case the macros in your refugium.