Trying to fix (VERY) high nitrates, but zero phosphates without massive water changes. Should I go ATS or Sulfur reactor?

[saje2haha]

I assume I shouldn't shoot for PO4 of 10 ppm if my nitrates really are 1000ppm, correct?

Go for sulphur denitrator. I have an ats but not working well as i have zero po4 with hanna checker. My no3 is 20. I even dose neophos 50ml everyday but it wont make no3 down. Today i dose 400ml. My tank only having cuc and 2 small fish , no coral. I try to sort this by dosing neophos first. If not working, i will put my sulphur denitrator online. I heard a lot of good things about it.

 

[Belgian Anthias]

So for some time I've been trying to get the nitrates in a 40 gallon down after a crash, but no matter what I tried, the test kit seemed to always show the darkest shade of red, indicating > 50 ppm.

Even a massive 50% water change didn't seem to fix the problem.

Frustrated, I finally sent a sample away for testing with ATI to see exactly what my water was doing, and the results that came back were insane: Nitrates were at 1016 ppm!!

Now, I'm not sure how much stock I can put in such a reading, given that I have a purple tang and flame angel in the tank that are doing absolutely fine (inverts and corals are of course gone save a few bristleworms), but the fact still remains that my amateur kits are pegged out.

I don't want to tear down the tank and start over, but the logistics of multiple massive water changes are also intractable. My RO/DI unit is downstairs in the basement, I don't have enough containers to move 40G of saltwater upstairs, and even if I did, my back would never be able to handle it (I barely pulled off the 50% water change). Anything short of a 100% water change seems like it wouldn't even be worth it to try, as even 3x 50% water changes would leave me with 250 ppm of nitrates (assuming I survived it).

So I'm left trying to salvage the water in the tank as is.

I bought both a small Icecap ATS and a Korallin sulfur denitrator, but I don't want to put too many new things on the tank at once.

So I was hoping for some advice on which to try first.

I know algae scrubbers seem to need some phosphate to work, and my tank tested at 0.03 ppm. I'm not sure this is enough to feed a scrubber.

On the flip side, I've read sulfur reactors can be very finicky to dial in, but the benefit (or drawback) is they don't need phosphates.


So which would be the better approach, to go with the sulfur denitrator since phosphates are fine, or to go with the ATS?

I'm leaning towards the ATS since it seems to be a lot easier to setup and maintain, but can an ATS actually run on nitrates alone should I feed phosphate to make the scrubber work better?

To remove 1ppm nitrate using an algae filter you need 0.1 ppm phosphate, and all other essential nutrients. One can fix this by using a for the situation modified feed medium ( Guillards F2?) . The algae filter must have the growth capacity needed, it must be big enough.

Also sulphur denitrators or BADES reactors need enough phosphate . It is NOT possible to remove nitrate without sufficient phosphate. A BADES reactor uses nitrate as an oxygen source but enough phosphorus must be availble to support the autotrophic growth needed , which is only a fraction of the growth needed for assimilation or carbon based heterotrophic denitrification..

 

[Jb2344]

How did this all end up?

 

[Dave1993]

what the heck and i thought mine were high at 200-300

 

[Jb2344]

what the heck and i thought mine were high at 200-300

The 1000 Ppm got my attention for sure. Haha.

 

[Dbichler]

Something has to be wrong with your rodi water are you sure you’re using the good line and not the waste. Water changes should have brought it down at least temporarily. Agree with most above but there’s something else not right.