NoPox timeline?

[jgvergo]

In your experience dosing Red Sea NoPox, how long was it before you saw significantly reduced Nitrates and Phosphates? How long before you were able to stabilize them at your desired levels?

 

[Ling_Thing]

Saw my nitrates plummet 48 hours, I stay away from that stuff now way too dangerous starving corals I actually dose n03 now....

 

[SPR1968]

I’m going from memory here, and it will depend on your initial nitrate levels but you should start to see some movement within a few weeks once the relevant bacteria start to increase

You must wet skim for it to be effective

Also it’s not very good at phosphate control, so don’t expect to much there and many of us use GFO in addition despite what Red Sea say. I use Rhowaphos in a reactor.

I’ve been using Nopox for around 3 years now, it can be very powerful so just monitor your levels and adjust the dose as needed. Maybe start at 50% dose and then increase by say 1ml/day/week until Nitrate starts to fall.

It’s just a balancing act and you will soon get the hang of it.

 

[jgvergo]

...you should start to see some movement within a few weeks once the relevant bacteria start to increase...

This makes sense since the basis for the method is to build up a bacterial/microbial colony. That's why I'm surprised that people like @Ling_Thing saw such rapid results! It's been a week for me, and so far I have not seen the Nitate levels move at all.

 

[User1]

It is a slow process if you are using NoPox with their instructions. It is a slower process if you cut the initial dose by 1/2 to 1/3 which is what you should be doing.

NoPox works and works well. However, you want to go slow and dose based on total water volume not to include rocks, sand, etc. So water volume only. Calculate that, pick best reef tank option (sps, fish only, mixed, etc), look at their recommended starting dose in the instructions, and my suggestion is to dose 1/3 of that after taking your initial nitrate and phosphate readings. Dose in the morning or day, repeat same time daily, dose manually at first, and retest parameters after 3 days to see what is doing. Repeat same dose and testing pattern for at least two to three weeks until you start to see a pattern. Then decide if you want to increase dose by a little bit until you are at the level you want.

If you read various threads here NoPox can reduce your nutrients to zero if you are not careful. So the general consensus is to go slow and reduce the recommended dose. Test twice a week.

 

[SPR1968]

This makes sense since the basis for the method is to build up a bacterial/microbial colony. That's why I'm surprised that people like @Ling_Thing saw such rapid results! It's been a week for me, and so far I have not seen the Nitate levels move at all.

Just take it steady for a while and slowly increase to start off until you get the feel for it and watch for when the nitrate starts to drop

Im currently dosing 26ml per day which is above the instruction maximum for 650 litres but im ok with that

If you see cloudy water or bacterial slime just back off a few mls or ripple the water surface to clear it

Im at high doses because, well i have a massive bio load, but am experienced with how it all works

Also try not to go below about 5-10ppm nitrate or you risk other issues. A good phosphate target is 0.03ppm but nopox may not achieve that so dont use nopox to achieve a very low phosphate target and end up stripping out nitrates

Just ask if you need anything else or your unsure