I don’t know how to manage my nitrates. Anxious.

[Miami Reef]

Hello @Randy Holmes-Farley

So I stopped carbon dosing for a few weeks, but my nitrates are slooooowly climbing up despite using an oversized skimmer, filter socks (changed 2x/week) + doing 15% weekly water changes. I do feed my fish often and well, and I believe that’s the cause of increasing nitrates.

I kind of just wanted to maintain my nitrates around 3-10 ppm. My nitrates are climbing to mid 8ppm which is still in range, but I don’t have control over it. It just keeps slowly getting higher and higher. I bring it down after the water change, but it reaches higher than the week prior in a few days.

I was thinking of just dosing 15mL of vinegar in my 260 gallon per day. I do use a UV. I don’t plan to dose microbacter 7.

I hope this will be ok for my acros…


I feel like I’m making a HUGE mistake. I just don’t know how else to maintain nitrates. I really don’t want to dose carbon because I’ve read people kill acros with it. But I don’t know how else to manage nitrates? I don’t have space for refugium and an algae scrubber is not something I’m interested in.

I’m just so anxious. I really want to carbon dose as it’s the “magic” solution which can be dialed up/down…I’m just so scared that I’ll kill my acros with it.

I’m just nervous right now. Does anyone have an idea on how to safely manage nitrates? I just want to have a safe solution like I do with GFO for phosphates. It’s a great solution. Maybe I need more corals, but I’m working at stocking the tank, it just takes time. I can definitely limit the food I feed.

I don’t want ultra low nutrients. I just want to keep them in range and in balance. If anyone has suggestions I’d be willing to hear them! Thanks!

Here’s my parameters:

Salinity: 35ppt
Calcium: 420ppm
Alkalinity: 8dkh
Phosphates: 0.05ppm
Nitrates: 8.5ppm
Temp: 77-78F
PH: 8.1-8.4

 

[Daniel92481]

Deep breaths….woosah…now I can tell you what you already know. Don’t chase numbers.

How’s the reef looking with 8 nitrates?

 

[Miami Reef]

Deep breaths….woosah…now I can tell you what you already know. Don’t chase numbers.

How’s the reef looking with 8 nitrates?

But. But. I want my numbers in a range.

Nitrates need to be between 3-10ppm
Phosphates need to be between 0.03ppm-0.10ppm.

 

[Miami Reef]

How’s the reef looking with 8 nitrates?

It looks fine - the same as it did when it was lower. I just want to prevent it from getting too high.

 

[Spare time]

Carbon dosing won't kill corals. If you want something a bit more hands off, you can use biopellets.

 

[Daniel92481]

Don’t kill yourself over it! I would honestly just increase the % amount of water changes to see if that helps a bit. Maybe do 25% and go from there.

 

[Miami Reef]

Alright, I have made up my mind.

Instead of feeding my fish 5 times a day (including autofeeder)

I will go back to feeding twice a day! If nitrate is accumulating it must mean that there’s an excess of ammonia being processed by bacteria. I’d rather have enough ammonia for corals and keep the residual nitrates in my happy range.

I’d rather not play with the carbon dosing fire. That really scares the heck out of me. I never had bad experience with it in the past, but I’ve just heard some nasty things with it.

 

[Daniel92481]

Amazing tank you have! Just seen your thread. Keep up the good work over there.

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

Ya I out in the category with ph. Don't chase the #. Reef will balance itself out naturally.
D

 

[Spare time]

You could also do a refugium instead. That is my preferred method

 

[Oregon Grown Reef]

Carbon dosing is a very effective way to reduce nutrients, but has to be done slow enough to not strip the tank of everything. The bacteria produced also feed the corals. I'm noticing much puffier corals after dosing for 3 weeks at this point. I am using distilled white vinegar (5%). My pH is currently at 8.02, but that will change soon as I'm going to be experimenting with a couple of things to see how I can increase it and keep it stable. The key to success is being hands on. Test often and things are much much much less likely to go wrong. Crazy nice acro filled tanks require frequent testing whether via an automated system like Trident, kh guardian, mastertronic, or manual.

 

[taricha]

You can do a little vinegar. It's not something that's going to cause a big negative change.

Or you can throw some macroalgae in a lit sump. Light+algae kind of is carbon dosing.

The algae do carbon fixation through photosynthesis as you'd expect, and literally they also release excess energy storing compounds as dissolved organic carbon - things like glucose etc.

So it's not crazy to think of light+algae as a form of carbon dosing.

 

[Cell]

What's your water change schedule? A little less feeding and a little more water change could be a solution.

 

[chipchipbro]

Just feed 2 times a day and not 5 times a day and dose a tiny amount of vinegar or plain vodka I guess..
But reduce feedings may be the solution here..

 

[Tamberav]

I wouldn’t say carbon dosing is anymore dangerous to acros then GFO. Both can cause death when not managed right.

Anywho if the feeding doesn’t work and it continues to climb… I would just try the carbon dosing but keep a close eye on parameters. Bad things happen when people get complacent or lazy.

Ease into it

 

[Reefer Matt]

When was the last time you vacuumed the sand? Do you have room to add a refugium?

 

[Miami Reef]

Alright guys, I had the intention of feeding my fish 2x/day, so this morning I fed the tank pretty heavily.

I don’t think limiting food will be an easy task lol. I have a lot of small fish with fast metabolisms. I already dosed 15mL of vinegar last night (260 gallon tank) and everything is the same. I think I’ll just keep that dose and see if I can maintain my nitrates to where they are now.

I want to thank @taricha ,@Tamberav , @Spare time , and the other folks who made me feel better about carbon dosing. I will go slow (as I did in the past).

 

[jim_fitz]

look at the Maxspect media
i highly recommend it
i have a 3000l tank with lots of greedy big fish and nitrates about 3 with little extra filtration

 

[Mr. Roboto]

Refugium.... Sorry, I didnt read all the responses in this thread but if you have the space, use it.

 

[aurora.k]

Don’t chase numbers.

I agree with this - practice good husbandry generally (feeding five times a day seems like a lot), keep the tank clean (or clean-ish in my case), and the numbers will follow.