I don't know whether nitrates are toxic to coral and fish in a mixed reef. All I know is I added a few corals in November. An Aussie Elegance, a long tentacle fungia plate and a Green Bubble coral. As my Nitrates increased, my Elegance died and my plate has receeded significantly. Both looked amazing then nitrates steadily increased.
From June to October I had trended stable - slowly downward with a peak reading of 44 June 22nd. Then down to 18 end of July. They stayed between 25 and 31 until October. At which time they hit a low point of 11 on October 8th. From there it's a very steady increase upward from 11 to 60. Where they are currently. I run three forms of nitrate removal and 1 form of Phosphate removal.
Tank is just around 4 years operational.
I have 16 fish in a 350 gallon. I don't understand what is contributing to my nitrates?
I'm on my second week of dosing Micro Bacter Clean to increase bacterial diversity. Since dosing that per instructions, I have seen a rise from 50 to 60 in nitrates. . .
PH won't rise above 7.5 - 7.8 Despite running a CO2 Scrubber with new media.
I use only baked baking soda for alk - dosing around 10 ml per hour of solution.
3 Denitrification tools:
Vodka Dose: About a month ago I increased from 19 ml a week to 25 ml a day. Nitrates increased from 25 to 50. I now increased another 5ml a week to 30 ml a day. despite my PH hitting 7.5 at night.
SeaChem Matrix Rock: I'm running around 10 lbs of seachem matrix rock in a Nu Clear Cannister filter with water controlled through the cannister from my return pump. It's slow moving water.
Bathshea Pellet Reactor: I just refreshed the pellets in the reactor, Leaving the old pellets in there and added fresh.
Questionable Denitrification tools:
Red Sea Rollermat 1200: I don't know if Roller mats / socks help with nitrates or not, but I go through a roll of paper every 2-3 weeks.
Skimmer: Skimmer air hose is run to a CO2 reactor. Don't know if this removes nitrates or not, but, I consistently get black liquid from it weekly.
Turbo Aquatics ATS: I don't think hair algae removes nitrates, but it's consistently overflowing with hair algae every 7-10 days.
Phosphates are running on average between .2 and .25 ppm.
Some stuff I've read shows that Denitrifying bacteria won't grow if nitrates are above 20? Or grows slowly? Do I just have too large of fish producing too much waste. I do have two creole Anthias. The male is easily 10-11 inches in size. He eats so much food! If I fed the cubes of frozen food he would probably swallow 10 cubes (whole) by himself.
Should I be caring about the increasing nitrates and will nitrates kill corals and/or decrease health of fish. I was told nitrates only affect freshwater fish. They fuel algae in reefs, but do they harm fish or corals? My experience thus far is they do. But, I don't know the consequences of such high nitrates other than losing my elegance coral.
Here's a chart of my nitrate trends from June to January:
From June to October I had trended stable - slowly downward with a peak reading of 44 June 22nd. Then down to 18 end of July. They stayed between 25 and 31 until October. At which time they hit a low point of 11 on October 8th. From there it's a very steady increase upward from 11 to 60. Where they are currently. I run three forms of nitrate removal and 1 form of Phosphate removal.
Tank is just around 4 years operational.
I have 16 fish in a 350 gallon. I don't understand what is contributing to my nitrates?
I'm on my second week of dosing Micro Bacter Clean to increase bacterial diversity. Since dosing that per instructions, I have seen a rise from 50 to 60 in nitrates. . .
PH won't rise above 7.5 - 7.8 Despite running a CO2 Scrubber with new media.
I use only baked baking soda for alk - dosing around 10 ml per hour of solution.
3 Denitrification tools:
Vodka Dose: About a month ago I increased from 19 ml a week to 25 ml a day. Nitrates increased from 25 to 50. I now increased another 5ml a week to 30 ml a day. despite my PH hitting 7.5 at night.
SeaChem Matrix Rock: I'm running around 10 lbs of seachem matrix rock in a Nu Clear Cannister filter with water controlled through the cannister from my return pump. It's slow moving water.
Bathshea Pellet Reactor: I just refreshed the pellets in the reactor, Leaving the old pellets in there and added fresh.
Questionable Denitrification tools:
Red Sea Rollermat 1200: I don't know if Roller mats / socks help with nitrates or not, but I go through a roll of paper every 2-3 weeks.
Skimmer: Skimmer air hose is run to a CO2 reactor. Don't know if this removes nitrates or not, but, I consistently get black liquid from it weekly.
Turbo Aquatics ATS: I don't think hair algae removes nitrates, but it's consistently overflowing with hair algae every 7-10 days.
Phosphates are running on average between .2 and .25 ppm.
Some stuff I've read shows that Denitrifying bacteria won't grow if nitrates are above 20? Or grows slowly? Do I just have too large of fish producing too much waste. I do have two creole Anthias. The male is easily 10-11 inches in size. He eats so much food! If I fed the cubes of frozen food he would probably swallow 10 cubes (whole) by himself.
Should I be caring about the increasing nitrates and will nitrates kill corals and/or decrease health of fish. I was told nitrates only affect freshwater fish. They fuel algae in reefs, but do they harm fish or corals? My experience thus far is they do. But, I don't know the consequences of such high nitrates other than losing my elegance coral.
Here's a chart of my nitrate trends from June to January: