In the quest to lower nitrates - how often can you perform water changes?

[SudzFD]

I'm having a hard time lowering nitrates, and I'm curious if I had two batches of water made (25 gals each), can I do two 25 gal WCs back to back?

Or is it better to do one 50 gal WC?

For some reason, the 50 gal WC makes me nervous lol

the DT is about 135 gal

I think two 25s is better. But what level are your nitrates?

Ever considered a small refugium?

 

[GARRIGA]

For the folks using Nopox, how do you guys manage nopox dropping pH? Struggled with this issue.

I ended up adding a HOB diy Fuge which then ultimately solved not needing to dose carbon anymore. However, I’ll still dose carbon if I need to drop it quickly or want to promote heterotrophic bacteria

 

[AlexandraDreadlocksPanda]

Following along. I've had high nitrates in my 25 basically from the start with doing water changes weekly. I lowered my feeding and carbon dosed w/ phosphate dosing. That finally brought then down. But due to a light change I lost room for the skimmer and stopped the carbon dosing and now they are high again. In short you can try carbon dosing!

I will absolutely second this! Water change is a temporary solution, getting it dropped then finding maintenance dose with Vodka is by far the best way, even if you have to add Phosphate initially.

 

[officialreefbros]

Or you get more coral to use it all up!

 

[GARRIGA]

Just to clarify and often quoted myth being one doesn't need a skimmer to dose carbon. Been dosing 2-1/2 plus years with no skimmer and no water changes. Do however have a large biological filter therefore don't know if that helped yet somethi8ng simple enough to add, if needed. No two tanks are identical but nature tends to work generally the same regardless of personal taste in equipment used.