How I keep nitrates low on the cheap with a large lion fish

[Lionfish hunter]

I will share how I’ve kept nitrates at undetectable levels for the past 60 days. I did a 100% water change a few weeks ago because I dosed the display with copper, no other water changes. Nitrates read 0 before this water change. Before I put this in place, I was getting an increase of about 10 ppm nitrates per week. The tank had 40 ppm nitrate at the start and grew more algea in the beginning than now. I will try and update this in a few months with results. All tests performed with api tests. I use Kalkwaser in auto top off to keep calcium and alk at proper levels.

I built a refugium from a 20 gallon tank. I put a sheet of Darice Mesh Plastic Canvas in the refuium, just floats on top. I bought a 600 watt grow light from Amazon for like 70 dollars. This light is the key. I have ran the light for 12-18 hours at night. It is basically a ultra simple diy algea scrubber. I have a 8” (just measured) lion fish which probably produces as much bio load as most 100 gallon aquariums with normal fish. So far nitrates have read 0, 100 percent of the time and my ph went up from 7.6-7-8 to 8.0-8.5. Phosphate is .25 but was closer to .75 before the water change. That is easily dealt with phosphate media. It started with the light up against the side of the fuge and a black piece of plastic behind the algea sheet to keep the Algea area more contained. This was causing my water to get too hot. The light puts off almost no heat but I guess it does put off some over long periods of time.

 

[Frogspon]

You dosed your display with copper?

Have you checked to see if there's copper leaching back out from the rocks or sand?

 

[Lionfish hunter]

I made the stand and canopy using 2x4s and 1x4s.

 

[Lionfish hunter]

You dosed your display with copper?

Have you checked to see if there's copper leaching back out from the rocks or sand?

I took out the rock and quarantined it for 45 days, I also replaced all the sand.

 

[Lionfish hunter]

You dosed your display with copper?

Have you checked to see if there's copper leaching back out from the rocks or sand?

Actually had a hermit crab live through 30 days of copper hiding in the overflow box.

 

[Lionfish hunter]

Update - Light is on 6 hours per day at 50% to keep nitrate at 5 ppm steady. No water changes.

 

[Lionfish hunter]

I believe I could keep up with 6 times my current bio load if I turned the light on 18 hours a day at 100%. Lots of reserve if load goes up.

 

[ClownWrangler]

600 watts of lighting is not all that efficient or cheap for one lionfish. I've never heard of a refugium needing that much light

 

[Lionfish hunter]

600 watts of lighting is not all that efficient or cheap for one lionfish. I've never heard of a refugium needing that much light

To be clear, it only uses 100 watts of actual electricity. 600 watt equivalent, it is led. And I only use it at half power 6 hours a day for a fish that is fed the amount of food equal to the amount of fish many people have in their entire tank. While I don’t make it a habit of feeding him goldfish. He can easily eat 8 good sized comet goldfish in 10 seconds. How many days would it take you to feed your fish the amount of food equal to 8 dead comet goldfish? It is a huge bio load. Most people use much smaller lights for their refugium. And most people cannot keep nitrates at 0 with no water changes. You may have never heard of needing that much power for a refugium, but most people would be much better off having more than they do.

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

Ud be surprised how much i feed my 100g.reef tank. Lol.
Of course it has a 6" squirrel fish. Lol.
I like ur floating algae turf scrubber with low flow! Right on.
D