Nitrate management

[lmm1967]

Curious on Nitrate management methods.

Tanks are only a few months old. Params on both tanks below

NH3/NH4 - 0
NO2 - 0
KH - 2.1 - 2.5 Meg/L
Mg >1500
Ca > 450
NO3 - YOWSA, almost embarrassed to say but it's > 40

Red Sea test kits, 60 Gallon Cube & 29 Gallon Biocube

60 Gallon - couple easiesh LPS, 2 small SPS, small clown, small angel (1"), medium firefish, 4 Green Chromis, 1 Medium Lyertail (will go away once it grows), banded serpent star, emerald crab, 4 or 5 blue legged hermits, 3" yellow Cucumber, at least a few micro brittle stars and 3" bristleworm roaming around. No algae issues - snails doing a great job, rocks are clean, glass only needs scraping about once a week so far. Dry skimming - no carbon or anything else. Temp kept at 79 - 80.

29 Gallon - Duncan coral, some zoas, small clown, lawnmower blenny, baby 6 line wrasse, medium flame angel, banded serpent star, 2 peppermint shrimp, medium fighting conch, emerald, several snails, several hermits and at least a couple micro brittle stars. Manageable amount of hair algae (CUC keeping it at bay, slowly reducing it). Carbon and Purigen in media basket. Temp also at 79 - 80.

I really, really want to stay away from dosing anything until I have no other choice. Water changes - doing about 10% every few weeks - am really close to breaking down and doing constant water changes (5% a week maybe) but not quite there yet equipment wise.

Any tricks out there for nitrate reduction I haven't found yet? Are these numbers at least sorta normal for tanks less than 6 months old?

Any opinions / recommendations greatly appreciated!

 

[jbdreefs]

Well.... you could try adding a refugium full of macro algae. Maybe plumb a 10 gallon tank into your 60 cube?

Other, non dosing, options would include:

1) bio pellet reactor
2) Denitrator (there seems to be a lot of mixed reviews on these!)
3) Cut down your feeding regimen
4) More/heavier water changes

Good luck!

 

[dball711]

Feed less, larger weekly water changes, grow and harvest macro algae.

 

[bulkrate]

Dball711 and JBDreefs pretty much nail it.

The works-in-every-case method is increased water change frequency & volume (think 10-50% a week versus 10% every few for meaningful nitrate export) or a continuous change setup to perform a 1 or 2 gallon change a day. But on a 60 gallon tank or bigger that can be a lot of water & salt mix to be going through monthly.

I've had very good results with macroalgae, but that's been in nano tank and using display-grade stuff amounting to almost 50% of the tank's biomass. I do favor it as a biological control since you can SEE when your levels are going up or down and adjust the feeding/water change regimen to suit. Plus pruning excess growth yields yet another method of nutrient export and one that's guarateed to be balanced between phospahte & nitrate without "stripping" the water so clean it starves your corals.

If you already have a sump/refugium space plumbed you really can't go wrong with a couple wads of chaetomorpha or some caleurpa (and filter grate on your return pump's intake) and some inexpensive daylight-spectrum LED strips/puck lights (anything in the 4500-6000K range will do). Light it on a slightly-overlapping reverse of your display's light cycle to also get some pH stabilization benefits as well once it grows out.

You could also try running a mesh bag of something like Seachem's deNitrate in a low flow section of your filtration. Just remember that like zeolite media it'll need to be rinsed/shaken periodically to knock the mulm off it - can be done just by shaking the bag for a few seconds in a bucket of post-change tankwater.

Biopellets or a denitrator loop CAN be very effective, but seem to have almost as many success stories as horror ones IMO... but admittedly I have no first-hand experience with either.

 

[lmm1967]

Seems I may be back to plumbing the 20 gallon sitting next to the 60 as a refugium. Sump space is pretty limited since it's a cube. Just need to sort out a safe way to plumb it in to prevent any potential overflow risk since it will sit lower than the DT but higher than the sump.

And probably go with small daily water change on the bio cube.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[lsu_fishfan]

Lmm1967;1073749 wrote: Seems I may be back to plumbing the 20 gallon sitting next to the 60 as a refugium. Sump space is pretty limited since it's a cube. Just need to sort out a safe way to plumb it in to prevent any potential overflow risk since it will sit lower than the DT but higher than the sump.

And probably go with small daily water change on the bio cube.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You shouldn't have a problem as long as the two tanks are not directly connected.

You can also look into doing bio pellets.
Before I started using them, my nitrates were 25+ ppm and now stay between 2-5ppm

 

[bulkrate]

If you go the biopellet approach, make sure your skimmer is broken in already.

Nothing like feeding bacteria to force them to outcompete other stuff only to have no way to remove the excess population.

 

[jennm]

The solution to pollution is dilution. More frequent water changes, and vacuum the substrate.

What kind of filtration media do you use? Change it regularly... sponges, bio-balls, even socks can go biological if they aren't maintained properly and that can aggravate nitrate issues.

I'd also get a second opinion with another test kit to make sure the one you have is accurate.

Jenn

 

[russ-iv]

yeah those nitrate levels are yuck.

just do waterchanges. drop them to 10ppm. that would require you draining the tank to 25% and then filling with fresh salt water.

i would look in to dave's suggestion as well as john's. both are solid for long term stuff

either way, jenn is right. the immediate solution is a wc. no doubt about it.

you could go less drastic and probably wont lose coral. but you wouldnt be doing yourself any favors either.

 

[morganatlanta]

Water changes over the course of a week to lower the nitrates, maybe four 25% changes, then whatever you need weekly to keep them in check. For the longer term, I'll also throw in

5) algae scrubber