Nitrates !!!!!!!

[newreefbishop]

I have been doing 35 gallon water changes twice a week and for 2 weeks and cant get my nitrates down past 20 ppm Does anyone know where I can purchase a denitifyer, or nitrate remove or nitrate remover or reactor......i have seen a few online but geez 400 bucks is a lot to spend.....

[carlosngloria]

how much do you feed?
what do you have in your diy sump?

[newreefbishop]

Right now to get the trates down i feed ever other day, just enough to be eaten withing 3-4 minutes.....In the sump, i have a recirculating skimmer, LR, some chaeto.....a phosban reactor....and thats pretty much it......I had some ntrate removing media in for about 2 weeks, but i pulled the bags at last water change......

[djfrankie]

Very easy to make one out of PVC. I just did. Look at my gallery for a pic and let me know if you have any questions. The media is expensive though but will last a few years from what I've read from the manufacturer.

djfrankie

[newreefbishop]

I dont see a pic in your gallery.......vould you post a couple pics and or the plans you used here please.

[djfrankie]

Originally posted by newreefbishop
I dont see a pic in your gallery.......vould you post a couple pics and or the plans you used here please.

Try it now.

The plans will be posted in the DIY section if you really need too. There's really no science behind it is just pvc from HD. Get the materials we could make one in about an hour :-)

djfrankie

[pedromatic]

Denitrators, DIY or store-bought, usually take 3 weeks or longer to have any effect. It takes that long for the bacteria that consume the nitrates to become established. Personally, I dose vodka. There's a lot of discussion about it on RC so I won't go into detail. I've also used AZ-NO3, which works more or less the same way. Again this takes time to take effect and you have to be careful to start gradually and figure out the dosage.

[ninjamini]

Cheato is the best method. Do you have a good light on it?

[ReefWreak]

I've been throwing a teaspoon of sugar into my 120g for the past week, but I don't really have nitrates to begin with, I just want to nip any last ones in the butt, and add some bacteria for the SPS to consume at night.

[newreefbishop]

I have chaeto, and its growing well.....I am going to try something I have read.....the cost seems rather low so its worth a shot.....it basically said you can use a phosban reactor as a nitrate reactor, same principle, fill it up completely with Kent marine Nitrate sponge, or some other nitrate absorbing substrate, and turn it down till it drips one drop per second, over a period of three weeks or so, it will get colonized in the same fashion, then you can move up to two to 3 drips per second, which should equate to 40-50 gallons per week of zero nitrate water.......seems simple enough.....I am also going to be building a denitrifyer....just to see which works best.....should take the same time to cycle.

[pedromatic]

I've tried Kent Nitrate Sponge, both in a bag and in a Phosban Reactor with a slow drip. It just didn't work for me. It reduced the Nitrates somewhat, but it never got to zero. I've also tried a DIY coil denitrator, which didn't work for me either (probably user error on that one ).

[ninjamini]

I had some success with cleaner clams in the sump. Get them from the grocery. aka little neck clams.

Also look at how much food you feed. What kinda food. Some have more nitrates than others. Never let food hit the bottom unless you want to feed someone down there.

Also what kinda fish? I have a blue throat trigger that poops like well...its a lot!

How much rock? Sand? Clean up crew?

Do you have bio balls? Bio Wheel? Filter? sponges? carbon (like chemi pure) or anything else that gets dirty. All these are nitrate factories.

[gasman059]

How long have this tank been up?
How much live rock u have?
How deep is your sand bed?
How many critters?
STOP FEEDING!

Those are simple and easy to address q's that should give u an answer prior to adding another piece of equipment and headaches.

just a patch IMHO find the cause first.

[illal]

Originally posted by ReefWreak
I've been throwing a teaspoon of sugar into my 120g for the past week, but I don't really have nitrates to begin with, I just want to nip any last ones in the butt, and add some bacteria for the SPS to consume at night.

ive been thinking of doing this myself ... i read 1/8 teaspoon for every 25g of water...but do you just throw it in the sump or sumthing?? should i disolve it on a cup of saltwater first??

[ReefWreak]

Yea I should have started dosing less, but I figured that it's usually less than the whole teaspoon, and that if you OD, you'll get a large bacteria bloom, and that has not happened, so I'm not too worried. I just throw it into the display and it breezes around and eventually dissolves.

I agree with Manny. Just cut down on the feeding. feed maybe 2-3 mysis shrimp per fish, every other or even every 3 days. That's always the easiest way.

[gasman059]

feed once a week. Your fish will not die.

[illal]

Originally posted by gasman059
feed once a week. Your fish will not die.

im just always consurned if i dont keep them fed theyll start nipping....i usually rotate between nori one day and mysis the next, once or twice a week i use cyclopeeze and i usually go a day or 2 without feeding each week.... ive been skimmerless for the past 6 months and now that i got a new one im just trying to finally get to zero nitrates oh yea and i only have about 2" of sand in the display and none in the fuge but im planning on adding a 6" dsb to the fuge...will that help or should i just leave it be??

[newreefbishop]

I have a 110 with a 40 gallon sump, sand bed is new for the most part, I did take a cup and a half from my old sand....about 5-6 inches. I also have roughly 120 pounds of rock, all from my old 65. Tank is about one month old. I set up a second phosban reactor filled with kents nitrate sponge, and daisy-chained it to the first phosban reactor, which is also filled. I have a total about a 3 foot tube running between them coiled in a bucket with heater to keep water at about 80 degrees.......and gues what....coming out the other side nitrates are undetectable. Based on my reading by the time the water gets to the other phosban reactor its running so slow that no oxygen is left. and voila, DENITRIFYER......

I will test it daily as well as monitor the levels in the tank, this is a good experiment without breaking the bank so to speak.

Also whats with this sugar thing? Ive heard of this but are there any benefits?

[gasman059]

Also whats with this sugar thing? Ive heard of this but are there any benefits?

Lots of experience with it locally and around.
I don't put anything in my tank except what my reactor and water changes will do. but i'm old fashioned lol.

IMO less is more. The problem here is the age of your tank. New tank syndrome is very real.
Time will fix most of your worries if done right from the get go.

here's the link to the vodka-sugar thread.
locally I believe Andy and Pedro(saltwaterfishlover and Pedromatic do it succesfully-u can pick their brains)
http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...readid=1225324

[newreefbishop]

So basically, your saying even though its an upgrade......I should worry. I should just leave things the way they are now?

[bawla47]

fwiw, i believe i read alot of people that would dose vodka and sugar, because of the huge increase in bacteria(all kinds) alot of people especially in europe began to get bacterial infections with there sps.

so keep that in mind and take it slow for sure. i really wouldnt dose the 2 unless you really needed it. not if your nitrates are less then 5.

[newreefbishop]

My Nitrates are over 5......for sure.........If I do decide to try this I think I will dose the inflo going into my make shift de-nitrifyer.

[djfrankie]

My sulfur reactor already kicked in. less than 25 ppm coming out of the outflow in 3 days. I love it and think I will call it my automatic water changer :-)

My tanks readings are over 80 ppm as I type.

I think sugar is great for cooking and vodka is great for the Holidays. I love automated stuff and daily dosing to me is a no no.

By the way prior to installing the sulfur reactor I considered how many water changes it would have taken to bring nitrates down by mixing 4 ml of cleanly made water with 1 ml of tank water and my nitrate results were almost the same. So a complete water change would have done it, but two reasons why I didn't do it:

My tank's habitants are mainly tangs and they are against large water changes. My purple tang is almost 10 years, blue tang @ 6 and yellow tang over 4.

Second reason is money. I was cheaper to make the sulfur reactor since I had most parts laying around.

The reason why my nitrates skyrocketed was from a non-working deep sand bed in the sump area. It was over 3 years old and when removed my phosphates immediately went down. I tried to find the culprit behind these problems by doing lots of water changes and even trying AZ-NO3. So no more DSB for me. It is much easier to keep my tank clean now.

djfrankie

[newreefbishop]

See this is where it gets crazy.......and the confusion starts lol.....

SO what is the general consensus? NO DSB?

I have a deep sand bed in my tank......should I plan on removing it? I have seems soo many beautiful tanks with DSB and SPS, LPS, Clams, you name it.......

I have also seen bare bottoms with the same things.....I like a sand bed because it seems more natural.....

In any case.....even if a sand bed is putting out some nitrates, if you have nitrate eating bacteria it should balance out.....am i right in that thinking?

[ReefWreak]

I've got a shallow sand bed, and I've been slowly siphoning out the sand from it to make it as shallow as possible, only some sand will remain because the ball and chain (girlfriend) likes the sand, and doesn't like the idea of the poor conch having to drag himself around on glass, versus dragging himself around on a "natural" sandbed ::shrug::

The sand bed will put out some nitrates, but in a DSB, they can get clogged up, causing "old tank syndrome" where it leaks out phosphates and ammonia. Funny the discussion of Old Tank Syndrome and New Tank Syndrome in the same thread.

The best and most natural denitration system I have heard of yet is the Remote Deep Sand Bed in a bucket. This is used to naturally use denitrating bacteria to break down the nitrate in the tank, be easy enough to simply repair/replace, and be of relatively no maintenence. Check either the lighting/equip forum or the advanced topic forum.