Nitrate reduction

[PeterEde]

My nitrates are high so looking at ways to reduce. De nitrators, chemicals etc.
One link in particular said bacteria for de nitrification is anaerobic while much of out in tank bacteria is aerobic.
I need a means to slow movement of water and reduce oxygen for this bacteria to grow.
Now most no longer use deep sand beds but isn't than the best place for anaerobic bacteria? Instead of relying on gadgets?
Just a thought as I am moving 1/2 my sand bed to my sump to stop my Goby turning the tank into a snow globe.

 

[arking_mark]

I like the heavy in/out approach for nutrients and use the following for the out:

• Roller mat
• Skimmer
• Refugium
• Coral
• DIY NoPox

Water changes with a quality salt are awesome for parameter adjustments.

Be careful with Carbon Dosing as it can very rapidly reduce your NO3/PO4.

 

[damsels are not mean]

put some coral in there

 

[Spare time]

What size tank? What is the current filtration? What is the water change schedule like?

 

[davidcalgary29]

put some coral in there

Perhaps softies and some LPS, but you run a risk of killing everything else with high nitrates. I had to transfer most of my SPS and LPS out of my Reefer 350 when nitrates spiked at between 64 and 75 -- everything was browning out, receding, or bleaching. Before my fire urchin ate them all, though, the feather dusters loved it.

 

[damsels are not mean]

Perhaps softies and some LPS, but you run a risk of killing everything else with high nitrates. I had to transfer most of my SPS and LPS out of my Reefer 350 when nitrates spiked at between 64 and 75 -- everything was browning out, receding, or bleaching. Before my fire urchin ate them all, though, the feather dusters loved it.

Odd. I threw some acro and stylo frags into the tank at my parents' house which measured at over 200 nitrates at the time and nothing happened really. Was curious to see what would happen. One of them started growing quickly and one seems to have started now. The others are just getting comfy. Been going back to do water changes to lower it since I'm trying to make that into a low tech bank tank but I have not seen much difference now under 100.

 

[davidcalgary29]

Odd. I threw some acro and stylo frags into the tank at my parents' house which measured at over 200 nitrates at the time and nothing happened really. Was curious to see what would happen. One of them started growing quickly and one seems to have started now. The others are just getting comfy. Been going back to do water changes to lower it since I'm trying to make that into a low tech bank tank but I have not seen much difference now under 100.

I envy you your coral. My stylocoeniella actually turned gray, and I had to dose Prime to get them to colour back up.

 

[PeterEde]

put some coral in there

I have an abundance of coral thinking coral equal nutrient export

 

[PeterEde]

What size tank? What is the current filtration? What is the water change schedule like?

120 ltr
25% weekly with
Heaps of lps.

 

[PeterEde]

Perhaps softies and some LPS, but you run a risk of killing everything else with high nitrates. I had to transfer most of my SPS and LPS out of my Reefer 350 when nitrates spiked at between 64 and 75 -- everything was browning out, receding, or bleaching. Before my fire urchin ate them all, though, the feather dusters loved it.

No brown out. Algae growth is minimal. Surprisingly for Nitrate level.
Maybe my redsea test is giving me bad returns?
My icp was test was near perfect. Phosphate showed higher than redsea test

 

[damsels are not mean]

No brown out. Algae growth is minimal. Surprisingly for Nitrate level.
Maybe my redsea test is giving me bad returns?
My icp was test was near perfect. Phosphate showed higher than redsea test

How high are the nitrates and does the tank look bad?

 

[PeterEde]

Just put this in today to help with Nitrate. Still acclimating. But looking awesome already
tank looks great just high Nitrate

 

[davidcalgary29]

No brown out. Algae growth is minimal. Surprisingly for Nitrate level.
Maybe my redsea test is giving me bad returns?
My icp was test was near perfect. Phosphate showed higher than redsea test

Perhaps your LPS is providing you with an efficient nutrient export system. I don’t have much coral or macro at all in mine, and my Reefer 350 is new, so it’s likely that my coral struggles without the microbial support. My other builds are all under 25.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

My nitrates are high so looking at ways to reduce.

How high?

There are lots of good ways. I discuss most of them here:

Nitrate in the Reef Aquarium - REEFEDITION

Nitrate is an ion that has long dogged aquarists. It is typically formed in aquaria through the digestion of foods, and in many aquaria it builds up and can be difficult to keep at natural levels. In the past, many aquarists performed water changes with nitrate reduction as one of the primary...

www.reefedition.com

 

[GARRIGA]

How I deal with nitrates and phosphates. Extended contact time to create an anoxic zone for denitrification. Large volume of media with a slow flow to allow nitrification to remove dissolved oxygen leaving behind bound oxygen that heterotrophic bacteria are forced to utilize to breakdown carbon. Carbon supplied by trapped detritus and if needed supplemented with NoPox.

Nitrated stay under 5 ppm and phosphates under 0.25 ppm. Latter will be better measured once I get a Hanna. No organisms required that level of precision at the moment. This is a test tank.

Design is similar to an AIO except instead on a wall it’s on the floor and all water gets pulled from the front and exits the rear. This ensures that at a slow flow all water gets likely filtered on first pass. Additional DT flow needs to be handled by power heads. Never been a fan of high turnover through the filtration. Contact time is key.

One of these days I need to do a write up on the build section and link to it from the experiment sub section. Might be plausible for others. I’ve been running on and off a modification of this concept since the mid 80s. Those never got lower then 20 ppm and most likely because I just didn’t have enough media to extend contact time creating the needed anoxic zone.

Point of clarification. Anaerobic is devoid of all oxygen including bound. I’m sure that might be happening as well and I do believe there might be some processes that occur there but my goal is to have nitrification create that anoxic zone to allow denitrification to occur. Don’t want to rely on water changes or chemicals to replace nature plus there’s benefits in having base added during denitrification that was lost during nitrification.

Another component I employ is using old coral skeletons (Reborn) as my top layer to perform some of the nitrification and release alkalinity and calcium as that process released acid. My current problem due to not having organism that consume alkalinity and calcium is that both rise for me and I’ve had to use Seachem Acid Buffer to reduce alkalinity. Unfortunately that raises CO2 which lowers PH temporarily and forced to increase flow to gas that CO2 which then impairs denitrification. Guess that’s a good problem to have once I have organism to resolve that issue naturally.

 

[Spare time]

120 ltr
25% weekly with
Heaps of lps.

Do you have filter socks, skimmer, refugium, etc.?

 

[PeterEde]

How high?

There are lots of good ways. I discuss most of them here:

Nitrate in the Reef Aquarium - REEFEDITION

Nitrate is an ion that has long dogged aquarists. It is typically formed in aquaria through the digestion of foods, and in many aquaria it builds up and can be difficult to keep at natural levels. In the past, many aquarists performed water changes with nitrate reduction as one of the primary...

www.reefedition.com

Redsea test is dark purple 30ppm plus
I know it's not a real concern until it hits 100 plus

 

[PeterEde]

Do you have filter socks, skimmer, refugium, etc.?

Sock skimmer and small amount of Chaeto growing. Also adding sand from dt into sump

 

[PeterEde]

How high?

There are lots of good ways. I discuss most of them here:

Nitrate in the Reef Aquarium - REEFEDITION

Nitrate is an ion that has long dogged aquarists. It is typically formed in aquaria through the digestion of foods, and in many aquaria it builds up and can be difficult to keep at natural levels. In the past, many aquarists performed water changes with nitrate reduction as one of the primary...

www.reefedition.com

Thanks Randy.
I have added seachem matrix into the return section in the sump. Has nothing an impact as yet.
Also added Purigen yesterday. Between the 2 I hope to get things under control.
Otherwise the tank actually looks good.

 

[Spare time]

Sock skimmer and small amount of Chaeto growing. Also adding sand from dt into sump

What light on the chaeto