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- Mar 29, 2018
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My tank is a 300 gallon (fish only right now) tank that has been running for just over a year.
fish:
puffer (porcupine) about 4 in.
powder blue tank: about 4 in
yellow tang: about 2 in
emperor angel: about 4 in
huma trigger: about 3 in
bannerfish: about 4 in
Auriga butterfly fish: about 3 in
sunset buttery fish: about 2 in
flame angel: about 1 in
coral beauty: about 2 in
half black angel: about 2 in
6 damsels
Total fish about 40 inches = 0.13 inches per gallon
Here is what I have for filtration:
I run two klir fleecer rollers instead of filter socks in my sump.
simplicity 320 skimmer
about 20gal of my sump has ceramic Bio media blocks
I have 8L of seachem matrix bio media, which is about 5X as much as they say you need to get your nitrates down (4l in a large reactor, and 4l in a bucket with holes in my sump). These have only been in my system for about 4-5 months.
I did have a small reactor with biopellets (I don't think it was big enough to do much), which I removed when I started with vinegar.
I would like to get my nitrates down. They initially went up over 150 when the tank was cycling, but then went down, and has stayed around 30-50 for the past 6 months.
ammonia <.25
nitrite: 0
I decided to bring my nitrates down, I would start dosing vinegar, and also add micro algae and a turf scrubber. I started dosing vinegar on sep 1 (almost 2 months ago). And I added the macro algae in a section of the sump with a ai refugium light. My macro has been growing like crazy (taking our a handful every couple of days. I also added a surf4x scrubber, which has just started producing.
I am now up to 30ml per 100 gallons (90ml per day on my 300 gallon). However my nitrates are now around 80. I have notices some bacteria strings floating around in my sump, and my class now gets coated with bacteria within 3-4 days. Also my skimmer is pulling out a lot more than it did before, so much so that I had to run a drain line out of the collection cup to the drain so it does not over flow in case I forget to drain it twice a day.
So I am confused as to why my nitrates are going up rather than down. One explanation is that I am dosing too much vinegar, which is growing a lot of bacteria, that then dies off, and converts into nitrate. But I never did see any reduction of nitrate, and I think I will need to end up dosing more than 30ml/100g to bring my nitrates down.
I did notice that my seachem matrix was covered in bacteria (because I was dosing the vinegar next to the pump going to the reactor with matrix in it. So maybe it stopped working due to the bacteria coating it.... So I rinsed it out, and am now dosing the vinegar away from the pump.
I would like to get your thoughts on this, and hopefully figure out how to get my nitrates down.
fish:
puffer (porcupine) about 4 in.
powder blue tank: about 4 in
yellow tang: about 2 in
emperor angel: about 4 in
huma trigger: about 3 in
bannerfish: about 4 in
Auriga butterfly fish: about 3 in
sunset buttery fish: about 2 in
flame angel: about 1 in
coral beauty: about 2 in
half black angel: about 2 in
6 damsels
Total fish about 40 inches = 0.13 inches per gallon
Here is what I have for filtration:
I run two klir fleecer rollers instead of filter socks in my sump.
simplicity 320 skimmer
about 20gal of my sump has ceramic Bio media blocks
I have 8L of seachem matrix bio media, which is about 5X as much as they say you need to get your nitrates down (4l in a large reactor, and 4l in a bucket with holes in my sump). These have only been in my system for about 4-5 months.
I did have a small reactor with biopellets (I don't think it was big enough to do much), which I removed when I started with vinegar.
I would like to get my nitrates down. They initially went up over 150 when the tank was cycling, but then went down, and has stayed around 30-50 for the past 6 months.
ammonia <.25
nitrite: 0
I decided to bring my nitrates down, I would start dosing vinegar, and also add micro algae and a turf scrubber. I started dosing vinegar on sep 1 (almost 2 months ago). And I added the macro algae in a section of the sump with a ai refugium light. My macro has been growing like crazy (taking our a handful every couple of days. I also added a surf4x scrubber, which has just started producing.
I am now up to 30ml per 100 gallons (90ml per day on my 300 gallon). However my nitrates are now around 80. I have notices some bacteria strings floating around in my sump, and my class now gets coated with bacteria within 3-4 days. Also my skimmer is pulling out a lot more than it did before, so much so that I had to run a drain line out of the collection cup to the drain so it does not over flow in case I forget to drain it twice a day.
So I am confused as to why my nitrates are going up rather than down. One explanation is that I am dosing too much vinegar, which is growing a lot of bacteria, that then dies off, and converts into nitrate. But I never did see any reduction of nitrate, and I think I will need to end up dosing more than 30ml/100g to bring my nitrates down.
I did notice that my seachem matrix was covered in bacteria (because I was dosing the vinegar next to the pump going to the reactor with matrix in it. So maybe it stopped working due to the bacteria coating it.... So I rinsed it out, and am now dosing the vinegar away from the pump.
I would like to get your thoughts on this, and hopefully figure out how to get my nitrates down.