STILL cant lower NO3!!!!

Ryanqk · #1 09/02/2006, 05:06 AM

I've been struggling with high nitrates for a long time now and after trying several things im coming to you. All my other parameters are fine, No ammonia, no nitrites, calcium and magnesium is fine, temp is 78 all the time, I run a coralife super skimmer 65 in my 10gl refugium with tons of chaeto! I have cut back alot on feeding, although i may still be overfeeding a little. My display is 29gl with 30lbs or so of Figi LR. i have a couple inches of fine sand in display and 3 or 4 inches of coarse sand in my fuge. I have a fluval 404 canister filter and i use carbon, purigen, and kent nitrate sponge. Tank is 10 months old.
1 female maroon clownfish about 2inches
1 green mandarin goby
1 eel goby about 6inches long
1 neon goby about 1 inch
2 camel shrimp
1 cleaner shrimp
1 pajama cardinal
2 starfish, fanworm colonies, hermit crabs, turbo snails, copepods, isopods, coralline algae
caulerpa, chaeto, small cluster of oysters
About 12 types of coral, gorgonias, softies, LPS
Anenomes: 1 small STA, 1 large LTA which glows green
I feed about 10ml of DT's every 3 days or so
other food i feed is mysis/brine shrimp on occasion, and daily i feed a pinch or two of slow sinking pellet food. Once a week i feed my anenomes a piece of shrimp. I add magnesium every other day and about 3ml of purple up every day, occasionally i miss a dose on this stuff. Other than that no additives.

I have rather dim lighting at the moment but im upgrading soon, currently i have a trichromatic and an actinic T12. I removed all the bio-balls, bio-sponge and bio-wheels from my tank over a month ago when i made upgrades including the skimmer. I need to get the nitrates under control, they dont want to go under 40ppm even after weekly 14gl water changes, i checked the water i was using too its 0 on all that bad stuff. Nothing seems to be dying in the tank i have looked all over for the source, i'm currently beggining a trial of sugar dosing to see if it makes a dent. anyone have any suggestions on whats going on here? I have not had any major algae blooms. i get good water flow in my tank.
Ryan

Spuds725 · #2 09/02/2006, 08:02 AM

I'm surprised with that amount of a weekly water change you haven't made a more significant dent in it...

Is the skimmer working well?? Dark and smelly

How clean is the sand in your fuge is detritus accumulating or is it being consumed by your sand detrivores-- I'm a little concerned about this as you are running it pretty deep but since its coarse, it probably is not doing anything for dentrification--- you need fine sand for that--

Are you cleaning the fluval regularly-- could be a nitrate trap/factory in there as well as the sand..

I've never done the sugar dosing thing.....

How is your macro growth?? would you call it agressive--- are you having to trim it back regularly??

Boomer · #3 09/02/2006, 10:12 AM

I have the same concerns as spuds. I would expect maybe a test kit error but you say youn have checked that. Was that tap water or freshly made seawater ?

Something on Nitrates

Nitrate in the Reef Aquarium
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/iss...st2003/chem.htm

TRIGER · #4 09/02/2006, 11:01 AM

same problem as u thinking of geting thw deltec nitrare reactor just come out says it gets it down to 0

ckrhone · #5 09/02/2006, 12:33 PM

I have a nitrate problem in my tank. However, since I installed the Aquamedic sulphur based nitrate reductor, the nitrates have slowly been coming down, still with weekly water changes though. One thing I must stress with them though, unless you control them electronically, they are prone to requireing constatnt flow adjustment and if the flow is too quick, the Ph can drop. On my reductor, there is an aragonite chamber to bring the Ph up a bit but you will still need to be careful. Other than that, I am quite happy with mine.

Ryanqk · #6 09/02/2006, 02:23 PM

Well the nitrates have been slowly coming down since i started skimming and hooked up the fuge which is still fairly new. The chaeto seems to be doing good i have noticed some new growth maybe better lighting would help. I clean my fluval and change media on a regular basis cuase it does build up sludge, my skimmer is pulling alot of that sludge out now. In my fuge i dont really have anything but macroalgae, and some amphipods, im trying to boost the population, when i got the sand it was not live i seeded it. it may still be "brewing" but is clean i dont see alot of buildup. Maybe its becuase it hasnt been running long enough yet? I set it up about 3 weeks ago. Its still better than it used to be, around 80ppm! now its about 40ppm and slowly dropping, but im suprised the water changes havnt knocked it out yet. Honestly i wouldnt mind my nitrates to be about 2-4ppm i think that might even be benificial, its this sky high nitrates over a long term that are bothering me, i dont think i have the money, space or extra outlets for any kind of nitrate reactor, like what some of you mentioned.

ckrhone · #7 09/02/2006, 02:48 PM

I too hav just set up a fuge. It has only been running a matter of days and got the chaeto this morning. Just need it to mature then I will detach the nitrate reductor becuase of the long term difficulties with them. The fuge should keep phosphates low too resulting in me using much less Rowa phos which isn't cheap.

Ryanqk · #8 09/06/2006, 03:59 PM

Well my macro growth is definatly good, i did another water change, about 14 gallons worth, out of 40 total. The NO3 is still high, i was wondering what kind of results anyone has had with additives which claim to lower nitrate thru gasification, thats what it must do i suppose, im not sure entirly but i think one of them is called AZ-NO3 . I've started getting some red slime, so i cut my photo period in the fuge by half for now. Any other suggestions? I tried sugar dosing but i dont think i had much of a bacteria boom from it, i was running my skimmer and its been pulling alot of crap out of the water, but still no reduction in NO3, am i doing this wrong? anyone out there dose sugar who can give me some pointers?
Ryan

Spuds725 · #9 09/06/2006, 04:25 PM

I would not cut back your fuge ligting schedule if anything raise it-

- I've read of people running them 24/7--

I keep mine on 18 hours a day as I read that chaeto does better with a night cycle...

if the cyano is in your fuge it is still pulling out nutrients so I'd let it go and on your water changes siphon it out (thats what I do)--- that way you will be exporting the nutrients that fuel its growth... cyano is a result of a problem, not the cause so by limiting its growth in the fuge it will likely just grow in the tank...

Ryanqk · #10 09/06/2006, 04:41 PM

yeah i was running the fuge lighting 24/7 now its running 12hrs if you think i should keep it on i can increase to 16-18hrs. I just dont want this stuff running rampant, i dont know about siphoning it out, although my sand bed is coarse it would get sucked up along with the cyno.

fishykid9212 · #11 09/06/2006, 07:12 PM

Aright, exactley how much and how often do you add the sugar that you said?

Ryanqk · #12 09/06/2006, 08:13 PM

i add about a teaspoon every 3 days or so pure cane sugar, the system has a total of 40gl including the sump/fuge, all my equip is listed above.

LFS_worker · #13 09/06/2006, 08:28 PM

Deep sand bed in a bucket ... proven to work ... dangerous if disturbed but very effective.

sorry for butting in

Brian

Billybeau1 · #14 09/06/2006, 08:28 PM

Ryan, I'm gonna give my personal advice. (because I have a son named Ryan)

STOP THE SUGAR !!!!!!!

Please, lets find out the problem instead of masking it over. It cant be good for your tank.

I've tried it all. AZ-NO3, vodka, sugar, ... etc. NADA !!!

Re-read Randys article on Nitrates and if necesarry, print it out. And re-read it.

After you understand it, come on back and ask somemore questions.

Ryanqk · #15 09/06/2006, 09:04 PM

Ok i have read randy's article many times before, and i do understand it. In fact that article is the reason i got rid of bio-balls and wheels, started using kents nitrate sponge, tested my RO water, reduced my feeding, started skimming more, Removed dying sponges, tested my top off water, installed a fuge, grow tons of chaeto, put a DSB in my fuge, and done every other thing randy mentions in the article that i could afford to do. Thats also the reason i posted here, since i've already gone there and done that so to speak. So now im looking for other ways of reducing these damn nitrates. I dont believe i'm masking a problem unless its a problem not mentioned in his article. If there is some other source of nitrates not mentioned in the article please enlighten me, becuase i wouldnt have asked if i hadnt yet tried the known causes of this problem. Short of starving my tank, ive done it now...... Im not saying those steps didnt help, they brought them down from 80ppm to 40ppm, but now they are stable at 40ppm and there isnt much more to do...
Ryan

Billybeau1 · #16 09/06/2006, 10:01 PM

Ryan, I'm just trying to help. Slow down buddy. I did not know you have been doing all the things to try to reduce nitrates. I think Randy's article starts out by saying "nitrates have long dogged aquarists"

Randy will be back in the AM. Hopefully he can help you more.

Ryanqk · #17 09/06/2006, 10:46 PM

Sorry if i came across as terse, did not mean to...
I hope randy might have some suggestions cuase as of now i'm at a loss. And i definatly cant afford one of those carbon driven denitrators he mentions. Curiuosly the way it works sounds suspiciously similiar to sugar dosing in theory....
There are a variety of different commercial systems available, none of which are especially popular in the United States at this time. However, they can do a good job of removing nitrate and some aquarists quite like them.

In one of these types of systems, a carbon source is added to a portion of tank water in a low oxygen environment. In many cases, the carbon source is methanol. The methanol is mixed with aquarium water in a controlled situation (such as fluid pumped through a coil) and the methanol is consumed by bacteria that use nitrate as an electron acceptor instead of oxygen:

this sounds alot like vodka dosing which is the same concept as sugar dosing just in a more controlled way...
Anyone else see what i mean?
Ryan

neuroslicer · #18 09/06/2006, 11:06 PM

I'm wondering if you've got such problems with nitrates due to a heavy bioload? If you've only got a 29 gal tank and 30 lb or LR, that's not much water for such a relatively large number of critters.

Ryanqk · #19 09/06/2006, 11:13 PM

Thats also a concern to me, i've been trying to get rid of the cardinal, cuase hes ugly, but also very hard to catch. The starfish are all gone now too, all the other stuff doesnt seem like it should produce that much waste but maybe im wrong...
I may have over 30lbs in rock but i figured the addition of the 10gl fuge would help handle the high bio-load....

neuroslicer · #20 09/06/2006, 11:34 PM

A large anemone can put out more ammonia than several fish... especially if you're feeding it a decent sized chuck of shrimp a couple times a week.

Ryanqk · #21 09/07/2006, 11:46 AM

hmm thats news to me, however the one in my 30gl display is pretty small. I only feed him once a week now, about half a freeze dried jumbo plankton, should i reduce to once every two weeks?

boxfishpooalot · #22 09/07/2006, 02:51 PM

Denitrification requires a low flow, low oxygen enviroment. Crushed coral will never provide denitrification, its too loose, allowing too much flow with oxygen. I would burry the cc with super fine sand.

They also require organics in the process. They prefer plant organics, like phytoplankton. My guess is the glucose they manufacture is waht bacteria are after.

Ryanqk · #23 09/07/2006, 03:25 PM

i dont have crushed coral i have coarse grain sand from a local beach about 3-4 inches deep in the fuge and 2inches fine sand in the display, is it possible the sand or something else is leaching nitrates or something else out thats cuasing the persistant nitrates?

boxfishpooalot · #24 09/07/2006, 03:50 PM

Look at it like this:

You have 100 parts of organics, and 100 parts of oxygen loving bacteria that eat those organics. You get 10 parts of nitrate from that.

But you only have 5 parts of sand loving bacteria that eats that nitrate, so the bacteria cant keep up with the nitrates, because there home is not equal to that of the 100 bacteria. So nitrate climbs. Its more like 100/5, when you need to switch that too 5/100 to reduce nitrate.

Reduce organics that are available to the oxygen loving bacteria to prevent nitrates, or keep up with the nitrate production.

I still think that sand is too big. Sugar fine sand is better.

Ryanqk · #25 09/07/2006, 04:13 PM

so you think a DSB out of very fine sand would provide more anoxious areas for the anaerobic bacteria to colonize and eat the nitrates away? in a system of 40gl total how deep should the bed be in the 10gl fuge to make this effective? over 4 inches? I cant wait to upgrade my tank, then i will just transfer what i have into the 55 and hopefully it will dilute the boi-load. Until then i have to deal with this problem the way it is. The one anenome i have is small enough that i doubt he's a major problem, Honestly the first chance i can get this cardinal that came with my tank im gonna throw him in the fuge until someone comes and gets him, i dont like how territorial he is and if it helps reduce the bio-load then awesome. Free large pajama cardinal to anyone who can catch it!
Ryan

BTW most of the coral i have a medium size frags not whole colonies, i have maybe 4 whole colonies which are gorgonias, pagoda coral, charcoal bricket size colony of green star polyps. every thing else on my list are tiny frags. Dont know how big a bio-load that is....