bms270
Community Member
I think I got to a point that it makes sense to share my findings on my 8 year experiment and get expert thoughts on how things have been evolving in my experiment.
I started my current reef tank in 2008 and followed most of the common practices of reef keeping in terms of water changes and other husbandry tasks. It is worth noting that my live rocks back in 2008 came mostly from another established tank so the origin of the organisms in my tank probably dates beyond 2008. In 2013 I decided to start experimenting with my tank to see what happens if I modify the common practices. The first thing I did was to remove the filter sock from my filtration system based on the assumption that it might be capturing micro organisms that could be beneficial to the system. I monitored the tank for any adverse effect but did not encounter any issues other than more loads on my skimmer. Around the same time, I stopped doing water changes as well sticking with cal/alk dosing only. As for exporting nutrients, I had my bio-pellet and GFO along with Carbon reactor only. My Nitrate slowly started to rise as expected as well as my phosphate. I was able to manage my phosphate to stay under 1ppm by replacing GFO every few months. Although I had bio-pellets, my Nitrate kept rising over the past 8 years. I have several Fish, softies and LPS in my tank and they all adapted to their environment. Green algae has been growing in small amount (thin film) on the back glass but thats about it. Pristine sand bend and clear live rocks covered in Coraline algae. Flash forward to last month, My Nitrate reached 800 ppm while my Phosphate was at 1.4 ppm. At those numbers I had no issues in the tank, no algae or sign of stress on the fish. So I randomly decided to test NoPox from RedSea to see how that can help me replace my GFO and Bio-Pellet with just dosing the NoPox. I know with those high numbers, my reactors were not doing much but something inside my head wanted to try NoPox. I started dosing NoPox gradually increasing to the recommended dose. After about a week, I started seeing some red algae (Cyano Maybe?) growing exponentially and now I see Fish and other corals are fully stressed and declining in health. I am planning to stop dosing NoPox to see if this trend can be reversed but here are my findings:
1. All my learnings tells me it is impossible to have any living organisms in 800ppm Nitrate. But from what I experienced, it looks like Nitrate alone is not able to cause any issues. This experiment led me to believe there is another contributing factor that might have been exhausted in the tank in the 8 years with no water change that essentially kept my 800 Nitrate harmless.
2. Every time I did GFO changes, I could see my phosphate going down to almost 0 and I could see significant reduction in the green algae film on the back glass. So this let me to think that minimal algae I have only feeds on phosphate and Nitrate did not play any role in their growth.
3. No signs of any stress on Fish or Corals in 800ppm.
3. Before I started dosing NoPox, I did an ICP test and nothing really stood out.
4. Looks like dosing NoPox is adding what I had exhausted in the tank which has enabled the Nitrate to do its harm. I can see the stress and significant algae growth now.
5. I will have to see how it goes if I stop the dosing but my guess is that whatever is added may not get exhausted in the near future. So that might mean an end to my experiment.
I am not an expert in water chemistry but would like to hear what expert thoughts are (Randy?)
My theory is that if we reduce another "unknown" factor in the tank, Nitrate can become harmless. I know it may sound strange but I thought its worth sharing my experiment.
Here's my tank info:
225 Gallon with 30G Sump
Bubble King Skimmer
Mag 18 Return Pump
No power head or wave maker
No Filter Sock
Bio-Pellet in TLF Reactor
GFO in TLF Reactor
Carbon in TLF Reactor
Purigen in TLF Reactor
Fish, Softies and LPS
I started my current reef tank in 2008 and followed most of the common practices of reef keeping in terms of water changes and other husbandry tasks. It is worth noting that my live rocks back in 2008 came mostly from another established tank so the origin of the organisms in my tank probably dates beyond 2008. In 2013 I decided to start experimenting with my tank to see what happens if I modify the common practices. The first thing I did was to remove the filter sock from my filtration system based on the assumption that it might be capturing micro organisms that could be beneficial to the system. I monitored the tank for any adverse effect but did not encounter any issues other than more loads on my skimmer. Around the same time, I stopped doing water changes as well sticking with cal/alk dosing only. As for exporting nutrients, I had my bio-pellet and GFO along with Carbon reactor only. My Nitrate slowly started to rise as expected as well as my phosphate. I was able to manage my phosphate to stay under 1ppm by replacing GFO every few months. Although I had bio-pellets, my Nitrate kept rising over the past 8 years. I have several Fish, softies and LPS in my tank and they all adapted to their environment. Green algae has been growing in small amount (thin film) on the back glass but thats about it. Pristine sand bend and clear live rocks covered in Coraline algae. Flash forward to last month, My Nitrate reached 800 ppm while my Phosphate was at 1.4 ppm. At those numbers I had no issues in the tank, no algae or sign of stress on the fish. So I randomly decided to test NoPox from RedSea to see how that can help me replace my GFO and Bio-Pellet with just dosing the NoPox. I know with those high numbers, my reactors were not doing much but something inside my head wanted to try NoPox. I started dosing NoPox gradually increasing to the recommended dose. After about a week, I started seeing some red algae (Cyano Maybe?) growing exponentially and now I see Fish and other corals are fully stressed and declining in health. I am planning to stop dosing NoPox to see if this trend can be reversed but here are my findings:
1. All my learnings tells me it is impossible to have any living organisms in 800ppm Nitrate. But from what I experienced, it looks like Nitrate alone is not able to cause any issues. This experiment led me to believe there is another contributing factor that might have been exhausted in the tank in the 8 years with no water change that essentially kept my 800 Nitrate harmless.
2. Every time I did GFO changes, I could see my phosphate going down to almost 0 and I could see significant reduction in the green algae film on the back glass. So this let me to think that minimal algae I have only feeds on phosphate and Nitrate did not play any role in their growth.
3. No signs of any stress on Fish or Corals in 800ppm.
3. Before I started dosing NoPox, I did an ICP test and nothing really stood out.
4. Looks like dosing NoPox is adding what I had exhausted in the tank which has enabled the Nitrate to do its harm. I can see the stress and significant algae growth now.
5. I will have to see how it goes if I stop the dosing but my guess is that whatever is added may not get exhausted in the near future. So that might mean an end to my experiment.
I am not an expert in water chemistry but would like to hear what expert thoughts are (Randy?)
My theory is that if we reduce another "unknown" factor in the tank, Nitrate can become harmless. I know it may sound strange but I thought its worth sharing my experiment.
Here's my tank info:
225 Gallon with 30G Sump
Bubble King Skimmer
Mag 18 Return Pump
No power head or wave maker
No Filter Sock
Bio-Pellet in TLF Reactor
GFO in TLF Reactor
Carbon in TLF Reactor
Purigen in TLF Reactor
Fish, Softies and LPS
