High Nitrates with good phosphates?

[TeddyM]

My nitrates continue to rise (47, 55, 66) while my phosphates are lowering (.3, .24, .15). This is after adding a hob refugium that is well lit with two tunze lights one on bottom and one on top. I have a reactor that has been running a mix of carbon and gfo (2 hours a night) that I have now turned off to hopefully balance out my nutrients. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[shanepike]

How confident are you in your test kits? Have you verified the results with a different test? @purereef will test your water for a variety of things really cheaply.

 

[TeddyM]

How confident are you in your test kits? Have you verified the results with a different test? @purereef will test your water for a variety of things really cheaply.

They are Hanna checkers with in date reagents and my frag tank results are correct.

 

[TeddyM]

They are Hanna checkers with in date reagents and my frag tank results are correct.

I can take a sample to purereef but I’m pretty confident they are correct.

 

[chuck]

curious what does your coral look like. ive had real high nitrates and all was ok. But real high phosphates and lower nitrates and coral look distressed.

 

[shanepike]

That's really interesting. I wonder if some kinda of refugium growth utilize phosphates but not nitrates maybe?

Many have reported carbon dosing working well for reducing nitrates:

NEW Vodka and Vinegar Dosing Charts

The reasons I'm updating the Vinegar and Vodka dosing charts are two-fold: 1. The ramp was unnecessarily slow. There was no perceived benefit to such a tedious ramp, and it led to reefers quitting because they thought carbon dosing didn't work. 2. The ramp did not scale up correctly...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[TeddyM]

curious what does your coral look like. ive had real high nitrates and all was ok. But real high phosphates and lower nitrates and coral look distressed.

I had to pull my acans and put them in my frag tank. Goni chalice zoas are fine.

 

[chuck]

I have been dosing vodka for many years. I love it.

 

[chuck]

Vodka dosing is so cheap I dose it daily. I tried reactors every media on market. All the media is a waiste of money. A simple bottle of vodka $10 cheapest vodka u can find will save u so much money.

 

[TeddyM]

I’m going to try vodka dosing. I will let you know how it goes thanks guys.

 

[TeddyM]

Decided to give Red Sea NoPox a try as the research I did says it will lower nitrates much more than phosphate so now I continue testing to check the results. Thanks for the help everyone.