Nitrate Control - The natural way (Help needed)

[Willylumplump]

It was 10” in my 58 gal refugium, main tank on had about an inch. I removed it all over a few months. The tank was 3 or 4 years old at the time. Never had any nutrients spike when I took it out, but I did have some algae cycling through, which means they were there. I had way overdone the denitrifying bacteria with all the rock/sand/pellets.
As someone stated earlier, if your algae is growing, it is removing nutrients,
If your nitrates are rising, your adding in more than able to remove, so reduce your input and/or increase your output.
I actually removed my sand and feed so little after watching the Jason fox tour video. Tanks are bare bottom and mostly tangs, doesn’t feed much. I had anthias, seemed to do fine on less feedings. They ended up changing sexes and killing each other, but I don’t think it was from the feedings

 

[OceanFlores]

My sandbed is about 2.5 - 4cm thick, some areas its less than 2cm because snails or flow has blown the sand around, I have tried recently with my WC's to stir the sand up a little to release the junk for the clarisea and skimmer to clean. I also introduced two nassarius snails to combat junk build up under the sandbed.

Also what does 11/2" mean? Sorry in Australia we don't talk in inches so I haven't been educated on what 11/2" would measure as and I feel stupid for asking.. Google conversion seems to be telling me that 11/2" is 5.5inches which seems crazy thick?

1.5 inches

 

[RoyinSpain]

I am having a similar problem. High NO3, zero ppb po4 on my hanna, and resulting ciano. Huge chaeto fuge but NO3 remains high I suspect due to the near zero po4. Need to get it back into balance.

 

[stevieduk]

i would say that your system is not mature enough yet. personaly i would not introduce corals till the tank was at least a year to eighteen months old and stable
yourbactaria will still be growing and developing at 6 months

 

[Juan Andrés Botero R]

You have a nutrient starvation..... Add Iron, chaetogro - brightwell and Phosphates! slowly!!!!, and observe carefully for the reef response. take note of this... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redfield_ratio "consistent ratio of nutrients in marine biomass samples collected across several voyages on board the research vessel Atlantis, and empirically found the ratio to be C: N: P = 106:16:1" ... "from 1970 to 2010 reported the global median C: N: P to be 163:22:1"

Measure Potassium and Iodine with Giesemann professional test and make the adjustments (slowly) with a supplement for potassium until is at 405-410, and for Iodine I use Reef Plus form Seachem that also replenish all the other micro nutrients and vitamins, the product is fantastic, but is not stupid free. you can burn your reef if you follow their directions, be very careful with it!! I douse it by the Iodine test kit reference, I presume that the rest of the micro nutrients that it has are consume in a proportional way and this has work for me very well. Calculate the iodine correction that is needed and make the corrections by 1/30th per day. My reef consumes 0.01 ppm / month of iodine, for my 144 Gal tank the calculation gave me that the daily dose is just one (1) cm of reef plus Seachem for day.

 

[Belgian Anthias]

My nitrates are slowly killing my corals I have 3 Trachy's and a bunch of other LPS corals which are slowly starting to show skeletons and my Nitrates are sitting at around 40-50ppm (red sea test kit) on my Waterbox 130.4.


Phosphate reads 0-2ppb on my Hanna ULR

I assume no phosphate remover is or was used.

High nitrate availability and very ( too?) low phosphates. It has been shown that this may be a situation that may be responsible for coral bleaching at increased growth rates. In an aquarium growth often is influenced by temperature changes ( day and night, light on or of), the availability of organic carbon ( DOC and TOC), and the nitrogen source used for metabolism. Organisms grow a lot faster ( +-5x) using ammonium as a nitrogen source. Most bacteria will not make use of nitrate-nitrogen if ammonium is available. Often an increasing nitrate level is a messenger for something that may be wrong and is not the cause of the problem. The nutrient level and availability where the action is are not always the same.
At a 0 level a lot of nitrates may be produced and used. It is when a level increases one becomes alarmed and often the level is blamed instead of looking for what has caused the level to increase. On the other hand, 0 nitrates may also mean no nitrate is produced and for me that is a more worrying situation as what is considered to be a high nitrate level.

To remove nitrate due to assimilation ( algae) also phosphorus and other essential building materials are needed. If only nitrate and phosphate are used as a reference for nitrogen and phosphorus availability this would be in weight at least 10/1. Theoretically, 5ppm phosphate is needed to assimilate 50 ppm nitrate. But that is not what happens in practice.
Organisms prefer ammonia as a nitrogen source, not nitrate. As the system was overfed a lot of ammonia was produced during a period of time, producing a lot of nitrates that were not used due to ammonium availability. At the same time, a skimmer constantly removes building materials but leaving inorganics as nitrate behind creating an unbalance in nutrient availability. Also, the mechanical filter removes organic building materials that are not remineralized when cleaned in time, leaving dissolved inorganic compounds in the water. To remove those inorganic nutrients essential building materials are needed!

An algae scrubber can be used to restore the nutrient balance by feeding it with for nitrogen modified F2 media, this way everything for growth is provided exempt nitrogen which must be retrieved from the water.

For this, a small algae filter will not be sufficient as a lot of algae must be harvested to remove 40 ppm of nitrate-nitrogen. I may advise using a refuge, which makes the removal rate active manageable. \

In high nutrient systems ( high bio-load) with a skimmer, BADES can be used to restore the nutrient balance and remove nitrate as nitrogen gas.

The first thing I would check is for temperature fluctuations in the system. Then look into the nutrient situation. It may help to manage the removal rate of the skimmer and or mechanical filter.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I am having a similar problem. High NO3, zero ppb po4 on my hanna, and resulting ciano. Huge chaeto fuge but NO3 remains high I suspect due to the near zero po4. Need to get it back into balance.

It is certainly worth getting the phosphate above undetectable, regardless of the effect on nitrate.

 

[Belgian Anthias]

I am having a similar problem. High NO3, zero ppb po4 on my hanna, and resulting ciano. Huge chaeto fuge but NO3 remains high I suspect due to the near zero po4. Need to get it back into balance.

Why do you think the situation results in cyano?

Near zero is not undetectable. Other essentials may limit growth.

What happens if you downrate or silence the skimmer?

In the Guillard f2 formula phosphorus is added as Sodium dihydrogen phosphate monohydrate. The trace elements to complete the formula are available in one bottle.