High nutrients

[AVVITT]

Hi people. It's been some time posting on here but I'm in need of some good advice please.

I recently had some coral issues, mainly LPS non euphyllia (all euphyllia thriving like mad!) and id bee a bit lapse of doing my ICP as well as home testing which is usually do one of the 2 monthly.

Test results came back, traces mostly good but nothing far out or to worry about, THEN came the nutrients......

Phosphate was 2.04 and nitrate was..... get ready......

234! Yes you read that right, two hundred and thirty four

Now I've always had high nitrate, often being around 40 to 50 and never really managed to get it much lower but everything has always thrived so no need to change it right?

As well as being lapse on my testing, I'd also been dosing RZ vita+ as well as aminos. I always took these to be like us taking vitamins, no actual nutritional value but topping up vital goodness for the corals. Then I discovered after seeing my ICP that Vita+ contains high phosphate and aminos are high in nitrate.

I have an 850L system running a skimmer, phosphate reactor, the red sea 1200 reef mat. I did 2x 25% water changes over 2 weekends and every other day I was dosing about 5ml lanthium and 10ml Tropic Marin bacto balance on alternate days.

I not have my PO4 down to 0.04 which I'm happy with but my salifert NO3 test kit is still showing the liquid as dark pink/purple which means it's likely way over 50 and pretty much off the scale.
Any advice on how I gently bring down my nitrates? I've been advised a nitrate reactor may be a good idea but for my size system I'm looking at £300+ which isn't an option at the moment because my car is off the road and needs fixing !

Is there a nitrate equivalent of lanthium I can dose to pull the nitrate out of the water without touching the phosphate?

Sorry for the long post and thanks for listening

Mike

 

[56longroof]

Look up a Donovan nitrate destroyer. Its mostly dyi and it is incredibly effective at lowering nitrates.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

There is no nitrate equivalent of lanthanum for phosphate, but water changes are much mroe effective for nitrate than phosphate.

How large is this tank?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Organic carbon dosing (vinegar, vodka, etc) may be a good option if it really is that high.

 

[AVVITT]

There is no nitrate equivalent of lanthanum for phosphate, but water changes are much mroe effective for nitrate than phosphate.

How large is this tank?

The system is 850 litres. Water changes are a pain because of the size and time it takes to mix 200 litres. Maybe that's something I'll just have to do each weekend I guess

 

[AVVITT]

Look up a Donovan nitrate destroyer. Its mostly dyi and it is incredibly effective at lowering nitrates.

I like the idea of that and may look into it

 

[AVVITT]

Organic carbon dosing (vinegar, vodka, etc) may be a good option if it really is that high.

I have gallons of white vinegar! How much do you think I should dose daily?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I like the idea of that and may look into it

They work, but are not super popular due to challenges in properly running them long term.

Direct organics carbon dosing is much easier.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I have gallons of white vinegar! How much do you think I should dose daily?

This thread has details:

NEW Vodka and Vinegar Dosing Charts

The reasons I'm updating the Vinegar and Vodka dosing charts are two-fold: 1. The ramp was unnecessarily slow. There was no perceived benefit to such a tedious ramp, and it led to reefers quitting because they thought carbon dosing didn't work. 2. The ramp did not scale up correctly...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[56longroof]

They work, but are not super popular due to challenges in properly running them long term.

Direct organics carbon dosing is much easier.

I carbon dosed for over a year. I could never get my nitrates where I wanted them. Now they are rock solid at 10 ppm. It can be a little bit of a challenge keeping the flow through it but I think if I had to do it again I would use larger media to combat the bacteria from plugging it up.

 

[Michael Hughes]

You could also try a fast-growing macroalgae to export nitrates if you have a refugium.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I carbon dosed for over a year. I could never get my nitrates where I wanted them. Now they are rock solid at 10 ppm. It can be a little bit of a challenge keeping the flow through it but I think if I had to do it again I would use larger media to combat the bacteria from plugging it up.

Maybe you did not dose enough?