How do you guys lower Nitrates?

optimisticdingo

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Hey guys. I'm running a Red Sea Reefer 450 and I'm currently having troubles lowering my Nitrate levels. Right now my normal is around 20-25ppm. I do 20% water changes weekly but I don't really see any drop in the Nitrate levels.

I've got a Reef Octopus Classic 152-S skimmer, Clean my socks every 3-4 days, as well as over 90 pounds of LR in the Display, a Nitrate reducing filter pad, and Seachem DeNitrate in the sump.

I try to keep my feedings under control. I feed 3 times a week and try not to feed more than my fish can eat in 3-5 minutes. I occasionally drop in a few pellets for my Male Lyretail Anthias to snack on during the off days of feeding.

The tank is about 3 months old so I'm wondering if the high Nitrates is just a symptom of the young tank age. However, it seems that no matter what I do the nitrates stay at this level.

What should I do, and what do you guys do in your maintenance regimen to keep nitrates below 5-10ppm?
 

Dolphins18

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Hey guys. I'm running a Red Sea Reefer 450 and I'm currently having troubles lowering my Nitrate levels. Right now my normal is around 20-25ppm. I do 20% water changes weekly but I don't really see any drop in the Nitrate levels.

I've got a Reef Octopus Classic 152-S skimmer, Clean my socks every 3-4 days, as well as over 90 pounds of LR in the Display, a Nitrate reducing filter pad, and Seachem DeNitrate in the sump.

I try to keep my feedings under control. I feed 3 times a week and try not to feed more than my fish can eat in 3-5 minutes. I occasionally drop in a few pellets for my Male Lyretail Anthias to snack on during the off days of feeding.

The tank is about 3 months old so I'm wondering if the high Nitrates is just a symptom of the young tank age. However, it seems that no matter what I do the nitrates stay at this level.

What should I do, and what do you guys do in your maintenance regimen to keep nitrates below 5-10ppm?
Seachem denitrate has 0 effect in the sump. If you'd like something placed in the sump, opt for seachem matrix, this will do better being placed in the sump.
Though if you want the best results, I recommend using seachem denitrate in a inexpensive media reactor with a flow pump less than 50 gph. This is very important, anything more than 50 gph renders it useless.
I'd do away with the nitrate filter pad. I don't think those do much
 

blaxsun

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First, anything under 20ppm is perfectly acceptable. Unless you're spiking over 50ppm on a regular basis I wouldn't necessarily be overly concerned (assuming everything is happy and healthy, that is). And even then people have run very healthy systems with high levels of nitrates. Often attempts to chase and maintain low single digits of nitrates are an effort in futility.

In terms of mechanical, biological and chemical, I run the following (excluding the rock in the display tank) on my Reefer 750 XXL:
* 4x 100-micron sock filters, probably changed out every 3-4 days (this will be one of the biggest physical methods of removing nitrates)
* Nyos Quantum 160 protein skimmer (probably emptied weekly)
* Nyos Torq reactor running Zeo (changed every 2-4 months)
* Another Nyos Torq reactor running carbon and Phosi-EX (this is so I have two more sock filters - as I found the media baskets get clogged up easily and don't run a high enough water volume; changed out every 1.5-2 months)
* Two large MarinePure bio blocks in the sump and three containers of the small bio hexagons in the area beneath the sock filter
* 1-2ml of Nyos Zero and Nyos Bio Booster daily

I feed the fish daily (well fed), add 2-3 rocks with seaweed daily, Red Sea Trace Elements and Reef Energy AB+ daily and Reef Roids once a week (I'm switching over to Nyos Coral Nectar and Nyos Strontium, Iodine and Active Elements after I finish using the Red Sea stuff up). If I can source the Nyos Absolute Aminos, Instant Plankton and LPS Power I'll probably switch to those once I use up my last container of Reef Roids.

I do a 10% water change roughly every 4-6 weeks. My phosphates are <0.025 and my nitrates range between 7.5 and 12.5ppm.
 
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SaltwaterGuruNeeded

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Hey guys. I'm running a Red Sea Reefer 450 and I'm currently having troubles lowering my Nitrate levels. Right now my normal is around 20-25ppm. I do 20% water changes weekly but I don't really see any drop in the Nitrate levels.

I've got a Reef Octopus Classic 152-S skimmer, Clean my socks every 3-4 days, as well as over 90 pounds of LR in the Display, a Nitrate reducing filter pad, and Seachem DeNitrate in the sump.

I try to keep my feedings under control. I feed 3 times a week and try not to feed more than my fish can eat in 3-5 minutes. I occasionally drop in a few pellets for my Male Lyretail Anthias to snack on during the off days of feeding.

The tank is about 3 months old so I'm wondering if the high Nitrates is just a symptom of the young tank age. However, it seems that no matter what I do the nitrates stay at this level.

What should I do, and what do you guys do in your maintenance regimen to keep nitrates below 5-10ppm?
Try chaeto, an algae scrubber, or tune your skimmer. Always good to check if your test kits are accurate by getting a test from someone else like a lfs. Try getting more surface agitation and also if you have a.closed top system it may help to open it up for a few hrs a day.
 

Reef.

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Wow you have a lot going on for such a young tank.

what is your nitrite reading? If not zero that will falsely show high nitrates.

Feeding so little and a young tank, I feel your issue is more than high nitrates, that is only the symptom.
 

Df1577

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Nopox is decent too, though I don't worry about keeping mine super low. Bigger concern is keeping nitrate balanced in relation to phosphate as to promote coral growth but deter algae.
 

PeterC99

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I have R2R425XL with 12 good size tangs, etc. Feed 2 frozen cubes in morning and 2 frozen cubes in evening and 1 sheet of nori mid day.

Homemade refugium in sump with chaeto keeps my NO3 at 2 ppm.

3866CCF0-8601-4367-AC95-D79C26EEE331.jpeg
 

Screwgunner

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Water changes . Dosing carbon, biopellets, Algea scubber, refugium, sulfer reactor. Are all ways to lower nitrates.
 

Screwgunner

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If you have space go with algae turf scrubber. If not get a reactor and put half the recommended amount of biopellets in it . You want them to tumble . The water that comes out of the reactor try to send the water to your skimmer. There will be alot of bacteria knocked off the biopellets. If you have a lot of corals they will enjoy that.
 

Screwgunner

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If you have space go with algae turf scrubber. If not get a reactor and put half the recommended amount of biopellets in it . You want them to tumble . The water that comes out of the reactor try to send the water to your skimmer. There will be alot of bacteria knocked off the biopellets. If you have a lot of corals they will enjoy that.
Watch your nitrates they will go down to a certain point if not low enough add more pellets. When you get where you want them . Mark your reactor for the amount of biopellet.
 

TroyClark

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If you have space go with algae turf scrubber. If not get a reactor and put half the recommended amount of biopellets in it . You want them to tumble . The water that comes out of the reactor try to send the water to your skimmer. There will be alot of bacteria knocked off the biopellets. If you have a lot of corals they will enjoy that.
Can you direct the biopellet reactor output to a filter sock instead of the skimmer or is the sludge too fine to caught by a sock?

Thanks
 

kados

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Go FOWLR and let it ride:) Big ol' water change every 3 weeks.
 

cwerner

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With a reefer sump I'd say your best option is an algae turf scrubber. That's what I employer on my current 75 gallon tank and it does great. In fact I had to dial the times the lights were on. First lowered it to 16 hours, then to 12 and now I hover between 5-10 nitrates and .01 - .03 phosphates.
 

blaxsun

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No love for Zeo? Between my Zeo reactor, MarinePure biomedia and Phosi-EX reactor I’m sitting at 4ppm nitrate and 0.05ppm phosphate.

I feed 5x daily: 3x dry pellet and 2x frozen (in addition to coral supplements).
 

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