Stopping nopox safely, changing to sulphur beads

[Barks]

Hi all,
so after dosing nopox at the recommended level of 12ml per day for over 6 months just to hold my nitrates at 50ppm! The nitrates only just dropped to 25 recently after i upped the dose to 16ml per day a month ago. It seams stuck at 25ppm now and im not increasing it. Ive had enough of the masses of pink bio matter growing everywhere.
just today i pulled an egg size lump out that was growing inside my skimmer!
im switching to a clear tides np200 sulphur bead and calcium reactor.
my question is should i hook up the new reactor which should take a month to start working and during the first month slowly reduce the mopox dose maybe 1ml every other day which would then become zero dose in a month.?
or reduce the dose first then when its zero start the new reactor?
or just stop it?
thanks
barks

 

[Dan_P]

Hi all,
so after dosing nopox at the recommended level of 12ml per day for over 6 months just to hold my nitrates at 50ppm! The nitrates only just dropped to 25 recently after i upped the dose to 16ml per day a month ago. It seams stuck at 25ppm now and im not increasing it. Ive had enough of the masses of pink bio matter growing everywhere.
just today i pulled an egg size lump out that was growing inside my skimmer!
im switching to a clear tides np200 sulphur bead and calcium reactor.
my question is should i hook up the new reactor which should take a month to start working and during the first month slowly reduce the mopox dose maybe 1ml every other day which would then become zero dose in a month.?
or reduce the dose first then when its zero start the new reactor?
or just stop it?
thanks
barks

I would follow your idea of starting the sulfur reactor while slowly winding down the NOPOX.

 

[Barks]

Ok thanks,
its seamed logical but wasnt sure if the continued use of the nopox whilst being reduced would affect the population of the sulphur beads?
cheers

 

[Dan_P]

Ok thanks,
its seamed logical but wasnt sure if the continued use of the nopox whilst being reduced would affect the population of the sulphur beads?
cheers

Just had a thought. Let’s see what @Belgian Anthias has to say. Belgian speak much about the BATES methodolgy.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Ok thanks,
its seamed logical but wasnt sure if the continued use of the nopox whilst being reduced would affect the population of the sulphur beads?
cheers

If the nitrate level is low for any reason, the startup of a sulfur denitrator may be slower than if nitrate is higher.

The organics (from NOPOX and from normal tank processes) may help push the sulfur denitrator into the anaerobic zone, so err on the side of higher flow until you get an understanding of it.

 

[Barks]

Ok, thanks randy