looking for your thoughts

roadracn · #1 12/25/2007, 02:12 AM

I am having an issue again with nitrates. A spike came along for no apparent reason, I did a waterchange 3 days ago and another again today. How many and how frequently can I do them to get the water back into check. I don't want to cycle the system, but am willing to do what it takes to correct the problem. Whose got a idea?

Curt

rkl303 · #2 12/25/2007, 04:12 AM

I think sugar/vodka dosing will remove the nitrates but thats not a permanent solution.

Otherwise I would say you can do water changes pretty frequently as long as the water is w/in the right parameters

gh0st · #3 12/25/2007, 10:02 AM

As long as your Temp and Salinity are as close as possible between your present water and the new water, you can do very large water changes very frequently.

50-75% every couple of days should be alright if you need to do that much.

Figuring out where the Nitrates are coming from would be a good idea as well if you don't want to spend all your $$$$ on Salt.

roadracn · #4 12/25/2007, 10:20 AM

I would love to fi

roadracn · #5 12/25/2007, 10:25 AM

I would love to find out where they are coming from, but I have no idea at this point. We have cut down our feeding a lot, and my next step with that is to change the diet of the fish. They seem to love the flake, and eat all of it, I mean there is no food left on the bottom of the tank. I know that they might eat it and then crap more and thus have more waste, but the current spike I can't imagine that its from that. I can only think that it may be from the new powerheads moving water once again through the rock, and moving some sand around, and thus creating the spike from stiring up everything. What is the sugar vodka remedy? Very interested in that

bmwardo · #6 12/25/2007, 10:28 AM

Are you running a skimmer? If so what kind? Are you using any other means of physical removal of junk and detritus?

tkeracer619 · #7 12/25/2007, 10:54 AM

Sulfer Denitrator

It's a DIY denitrator that seems to work very well. I plan on building one myself.

wantsalotta · #8 12/25/2007, 11:39 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by tkeracer619
Sulfer Denitrator

It's a DIY denitrator that seems to work very well. I plan on building one myself.

Forget the denitrator and do A nice big refugium. My point is, if it seems to work so well, why the nitrate spikes? Maybe this DIY unit itself is the problem.

bcolvin · #9 12/25/2007, 12:14 PM

Heck yes on the refugium! Why not use the nitrates for some good? Grow some chaeto and tridacnas love nitrates. There are people that have dosed nitrates and had huge growth in their clams. Toss in a deressa or a squammie and put on a refuge with a monster deep sand bed. Also you could put a remote deep sand bed on the tank.

Water changes are good but.... you still have the problem. Fix the problem by any of the methods others have suggested. Good luck

roadracn · #10 12/25/2007, 12:45 PM

well I have what I thought was a good skimmer, lifereef and I also have a fuge of sorts. I have the chaeto, and all the water that runs though the tank runs through the fuge. I currently have it lit 24hrs a day, although I am thinking of cutting it back to nighttime use only. I am looking to build a real sump with Fuge and have seen the ones at reef and pond that i really like, although I am open to any other options and would like to see what you have got. I use the normal pad and such to pull out large waste, but the skimmer doesn't seem to pull that much out. I have a mag 9 running it, maybe I will start a thread about that skimmer, or is it junk?

roadracn · #11 12/25/2007, 01:31 PM

just found a cracked glass heater full of water. Think that would hurt anything?

adams0816 · #12 12/25/2007, 02:23 PM

oh yea, the ceramic & chemicals in the glass heaters will raise the nitrates.good find. Did you get shocked when you put you hand in the water??

roadracn · #13 12/25/2007, 02:29 PM

I felt a little bit the other day, but didnt think much of it. My hands arent realy sensitive because of the work that I do. Going to do another waterchange today. What is the Sugar vodka mix to lower them? Is there any negitive reaction to the tank? Anyone got an extra heater? only 1 in there now, and tank is a bit lower than I would like

Zooid · #14 12/25/2007, 03:40 PM

If you decide to dose vodka or sugar, be extremely careful. The bacteria bloom that could come will lower the oxygen and therefore lower the pH a BIG amount. I dosed about 2 tablespoons of sugar to my tank yesterday and it pushed my pH from 8.2 to 7.9 in no time. Also, unless you have a really good skimmer or you skim very wet, dosing may not help you much.
I put the 2 tablespoons in my sump and I have a total volume of around 240 gallons.
Good luck

roadracn · #15 12/25/2007, 03:58 PM

chose to do a small dose of sugar. ! teaspoon for around 175 total gallons. Skimming wet, PH monitor is working....

roguemonk · #16 12/27/2007, 03:55 AM

I'm no expert in reef chemistry but: Metals from the heater could be a big problem (copper especially). I would clean it up and then do a couple of water changes just in case there's a copper spike.

Brad

spleify · #17 12/27/2007, 11:19 AM

Be very careful with dosing sugar, as mentioned above. I did use this method and it did work, as stated earlier, it is always best to find the source of the Nitrates, and it looks like you did so that is great. My Nitrates were at 190(very poor husbandry, and I have changed my ways BIG TIME) I dosed for about 10 days, doing water changes about every 3 days. They have been at 0 for about 9 months now!
Here is the link on the sugar dosing:
http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...hreadid=898931

Good luck HTH
Spleify

roadracn · #18 12/29/2007, 02:33 AM

hey SP, I read the entire post, yes all 23 pages, and it seems like there is a lot of good with little bad from dosing sugar. As I am new to doing it, and I don't see anyone talking about it on the local list, I am going to try it. As it seems, someone at a LFS said to buy a PO4 reactor, which I did and it lowered them to 0, which is good in 1 aspect, but it throws my system out of wack because the NO3 is still as high as it is. I am not toally clear on the relationship that no3 and po4 have with each other, but I can find that 0 po4 with an elevated amount of no3 is a bad combo. I am starting with little sugar and going from there. I will post results as to what I find. I also got the skimmer problem that I was having resovled. Long story short, the water in my sump was too high for the skimmer to work as designed. I got the correct pump for the UV and will be hooking that up again tomorrow. Also in the process of setting up the CA reactor that has been sitting doing noting forever. oh yea and I got the rock stacked also. Its been a good wek in aqualand