Red Sea NOPOX - confused on first days results.

[kilnakorr]

Hi

I had a small bottle of NoPox laying around and as my NO3 was a little higher than I'd like, I thought I'd give it a try.
Hooked it up to my doser and started slowly with just 2x2ml noon and midnight, for a total of 4ml daily.

Total water around 450Liter
NO3: 15 ish ppm (Nyos testkit, so hard to tell between 12 and 25 ppm)
PO4: 0.06 ppm (Hanna ppb checker - converted result)

Now 4 days later I have:
NO3: 12-15 ppm - might have dropped 1-2ppm
PO4: <0.02 ppm

I though nopox had very little effect on phosphates, but seems to be dropping quite fast.
Is this 'normal'?

 

[IslandLifeReef]

Hi

I had a small bottle of NoPox laying around and as my NO3 was a little higher than I'd like, I thought I'd give it a try.
Hooked it up to my doser and started slowly with just 2x2ml noon and midnight, for a total of 4ml daily.

Total water around 450Liter
NO3: 15 ish ppm (Nyos testkit, so hard to tell between 12 and 25 ppm)
PO4: 0.06 ppm (Hanna ppb checker - converted result)

Now 4 days later I have:
NO3: 12-15 ppm - might have dropped 1-2ppm
PO4: <0.02 ppm

I though nopox had very little effect on phosphates, but seems to be dropping quite fast.
Is this 'normal'?

You PO4 reading was within the margin of error for the Hanna PO4 ULR checker with a possible minor drop in PO4. If your true phosphorus reading in the tank was 14 ppt, then your checker could read anywhere from 9-19 ppt +/- 10%. That would give you a range of 8-21 ppt. Just a little drop, such as 1-2 ppt, could make your Hanna checker read as low as 6 ppt.

 

[kilnakorr]

You PO4 reading was within the margin of error for the Hanna PO4 ULR checker with a possible minor drop in PO4. If your true phosphorus reading in the tank was 14 ppt, then your checker could read anywhere from 9-19 ppt +/- 10%. That would give you a range of 8-21 ppt. Just a little drop, such as 1-2 ppt, could make your Hanna checker read as low as 6 ppt.

I hope you mean ppb.
I have consistently have readings of 16-22 ppb over the last 3 months. I don't see how an error can suddenly make me read 6-8 ppb. It is not a single test result.
Test was 8 ppb today, after a good feeding of reef roids last night.

 

[redfishbluefish]

NOPOX, or any form of carbon dosing, doesn't work overnight. It takes time....I'm talking weeks or months. Bacteria need to flourish and your skimmer then needs to pull them out.

Give it time. In addition, start to increase dose weekly until you're at the recommend level....per NOPOX instruction. If I remember correctly, you're not at maximum dose until week three.

One additional point....you need both nitrates and phosphates for NOPOX to work. If one or the other is limited, it won't work.

 

[kilnakorr]

NOPOX, or any form of carbon dosing, doesn't work overnight. It takes time....I'm talking weeks or months. Bacteria need to flourish and your skimmer then needs to pull them out.

Give it time. In addition, start to increase dose weekly until you're at the recommend level....per NOPOX instruction. If I remember correctly, you're not at maximum dose until week three.

One additional point....you need both nitrates and phosphates for NOPOX to work. If one or the other is limited, it won't work.

Thank you for the reply.
I did start the dosing very slowly, as I'm not in a critical situation.
I'm not surprised that nitrates haven't dropped much, but wondering why phosphate has.
Increasing the dose might make my phosphates bottom out and I was trying to get my nitrates down.

 

[redfishbluefish]

It that's the case, your options are to reduce nitrates on there own.....i..e, water changes, or dose phosphates to allow your carbon dosing to work.

 

[fryman]

I wouldn't expect nopox to start working immediately, but when it does it will affect both nitrate and phosphate. It affects nitrate more but if phos is low you can bottom out.

I try to control phos using pellets on an auto feeder. If phos gets too low I feed more pellets, too high and I dial it back. But this is not very easy, it's a very delayed response so have to track over weeks/months (not going to see a day-to-day reaction).

 

[kilnakorr]

It that's the case, your options are to reduce nitrates on there own.....i..e, water changes, or dose phosphates to allow your carbon dosing to work.

This might be the way to go. Dose a bit phosphate untill my nitrates are coming down.
Then get the nopox dialed in to keep them steady and see if phosphates does the same.
Might just try feeding more often with roids as they tend to add much more phosphate than nitrate.

 

[kilnakorr]

I wouldn't expect nopox to start working immediately, but when it does it will affect both nitrate and phosphate. It affects nitrate more but if phos is low you can bottom out.

I try to control phos using pellets on an auto feeder. If phos gets too low I feed more pellets, too high and I dial it back. But this is not very easy, it's a very delayed response so have to track over weeks/months (not going to see a day-to-day reaction).

Thank you.
It could be something else happening but cannot see what it could be, as nothing else has changed.

 

[Uncle99]

The difference when your talking about hobby grade test of phosphate, is mostly testing error.
Nopox does little for phosphate as there’s just a trace.
Your numbers seem correct to me and all OK.
It took months for me to go from 50ppm to 5ppm.

 

[IslandLifeReef]

I hope you mean ppb.
I have consistently have readings of 16-22 ppb over the last 3 months. I don't see how an error can suddenly make me read 6-8 ppb. It is not a single test result.
Test was 8 ppb today, after a good feeding of reef roids last night.

Yes, ppb. The Hanna Checker has a error of +/- 5 ppb plus and addition +/- 10% of the final number. So, lets say that your water was actually at 11ppb. Plus or minus 5 ppb would then make the reading on the Hanna checker anywhere from 6-16 ppb. Then if you factor in the +/- 10% on top of that, the Hanna could read from 5-18 ppb when in reality, the water is 11ppb. So, what you are seeing could be testing error. I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[kilnakorr]

Yes, ppb. The Hanna Checker has a error of +/- 5 ppb plus and addition +/- 10% of the final number. So, lets say that your water was actually at 11ppb. Plus or minus 5 ppb would then make the reading on the Hanna checker anywhere from 6-16 ppb. Then if you factor in the +/- 10% on top of that, the Hanna could read from 5-18 ppb when in reality, the water is 11ppb. So, what you are seeing could be testing error. I wouldn't worry about it.

This may be correct.
But I have had consistent results untill I started dosing. It might not be accurate, but consistent. If it was testing inaccuracy, I should see this throughout my tests and not a sudden drop.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

This may be correct.
But I have had consistent results untill I started dosing. It might not be accurate, but consistent. If it was testing inaccuracy, I should see this throughout my tests and not a sudden drop.

For random variation, yes. For issues that are not random, like a scratched cuvette, degrading reagents, etc, the change can be sudden.

 

[IslandLifeReef]

This may be correct.
But I have had consistent results untill I started dosing. It might not be accurate, but consistent. If it was testing inaccuracy, I should see this throughout my tests and not a sudden drop.

Maybe, maybe not. When I started dosing Microbacter7, I got a weird PO4 reading on my Hanna checker as well. Not a chemist, but maybe the change in my tank upset some of the water chemistry causing a change in my test. Maybe it was just testing error, though I would get consistent readings within 1 ppb every week. Maybe that packet of reagent wasn't the same as the others. Could be many different things.

I am just pointing out that the difference you are seeing is within testing error. Because of that, I wouldn't start changing things after 4 days. If you see a consistent pattern after several weeks, then a change may be in order.

 

[kilnakorr]

For random variation, yes. For issues that are not random, like a scratched cuvette, degrading reagents, etc, the change can be sudden.

Very true and possible.
I just double checked with my other phosphate checker, which showed 3 ppm (hanna phosphate checker).
Does not look like a faulty test.