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- Aug 14, 2017
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So I have been battling a nutrient problem in my tank basically since I cycled it 2.5 years ago. After my cycle completed my nitrates were at 50-60. Initially I was reading PO4 in the tank about .08. About a month or so later the PO4 bottomed out and would stay there unless I dosed phosphate into the tank (which I am still doing currently). I also had a pretty good cyano breakout for several months shortly after the cycle.
The cyano disappeared but my nitrates continued to be high. An ICP test I did 1.5 years ago had them at ~80 and phosphate at essentially zero. The recommendation from ATI was actually to add phosphorus to the aquarium as that was basically non existent in the tank as well.
So now to present day. I have lost most of my corals and my sand bed always looks dingy with some kind of algae. I set up a DIY denitrator from the DIY section on this forum hoping that would help. It hasn’t. I am dosing 34 ml of vodka into the denitrator but the NO3 coming out hasn’t changed.
Now to finally get to the bottom of this and hopefully get my aquarium looking good this year I did another ICP test to see what my nitrates were doing. Well they are currently 237. Way to high. So I have started to get much more aggressive with water changes to start bringing them down. This is a 300 gallon aquarium so doing a very large water change would be rather difficult. I have a 35 gallon brute container for saltwater mixing. My water change system will take about 25 gallons out of the sump then refill it with fresh saltwater. I plan on doing this daily whenever I am home.
My questions for those with more knowledge than myself would be:
Since the denitrator doesn’t seem to be doing any good should I just take it offline and dose vodka directly to the tank?
Is 34 ml of vodka daily too much for a 300 gallon tank with nitrates that high?
What are my potential sources for this high nitrate? I have about a dozen fish in the tank only one yellow tang and one fox face the others are relatively small fish (clowns, fire fish, blenny, small wrasses). I feed about the equivalent of a cube of mysis shrimp daily. I run a large skimmer and have a 10 gallon refugium. The tank has been running for about 2.5 years so any nutrients from my rock should be spent.
Finally, what could be causing this weird nutrient imbalance? If I don’t dose phosphate it will bottom out at 0. Nitrate just appears to keep climbing no matter what.
Of course I can share the ICP test results if that is helpful as well.
Thanks
The cyano disappeared but my nitrates continued to be high. An ICP test I did 1.5 years ago had them at ~80 and phosphate at essentially zero. The recommendation from ATI was actually to add phosphorus to the aquarium as that was basically non existent in the tank as well.
So now to present day. I have lost most of my corals and my sand bed always looks dingy with some kind of algae. I set up a DIY denitrator from the DIY section on this forum hoping that would help. It hasn’t. I am dosing 34 ml of vodka into the denitrator but the NO3 coming out hasn’t changed.
Now to finally get to the bottom of this and hopefully get my aquarium looking good this year I did another ICP test to see what my nitrates were doing. Well they are currently 237. Way to high. So I have started to get much more aggressive with water changes to start bringing them down. This is a 300 gallon aquarium so doing a very large water change would be rather difficult. I have a 35 gallon brute container for saltwater mixing. My water change system will take about 25 gallons out of the sump then refill it with fresh saltwater. I plan on doing this daily whenever I am home.
My questions for those with more knowledge than myself would be:
Since the denitrator doesn’t seem to be doing any good should I just take it offline and dose vodka directly to the tank?
Is 34 ml of vodka daily too much for a 300 gallon tank with nitrates that high?
What are my potential sources for this high nitrate? I have about a dozen fish in the tank only one yellow tang and one fox face the others are relatively small fish (clowns, fire fish, blenny, small wrasses). I feed about the equivalent of a cube of mysis shrimp daily. I run a large skimmer and have a 10 gallon refugium. The tank has been running for about 2.5 years so any nutrients from my rock should be spent.
Finally, what could be causing this weird nutrient imbalance? If I don’t dose phosphate it will bottom out at 0. Nitrate just appears to keep climbing no matter what.
Of course I can share the ICP test results if that is helpful as well.
Thanks