Nitrate will not go down...

[Carandiru]

So I have been battling higher nitrates for some time now. I reduced my feeding. I bought a biopellet reactor (aquamaxx biomaxx reactor). I run rowaphos aswell. Still the nitrates haven't gone down. I vacummed my sand bed and pulled out a lot of brown stuff. The sandbed is only 1 to 2 inches deep max. There is a lot of live rock, 90 gallons more than 90 pounds. The tank is about a year old now. The phosphates are no going lower than 0.29. This is measured with the hanna meter. The Seachem test consistently shows nitrate as a deep purple which is around 40 to 50.
My alkalinity is 8 to 8.9 dKh. PH is consistent from 8.1 to 8.4. 0 ammonia 0 nitrite.

I've been trying out prodibio for over a month and keeping up with the regular dosing. I've also been dosing AZNO3 for a couple weeks now with no side affects except notcing my skimmer working more efficiently pulling out lots of crap. Also noticed brown fuzzy slimmy stuff (I think it's biofilm ) growing on the sand bed after dosing this AZNO3.

No hair algae outbreaks, that stopped quite some time ago.

So what am I doing wrong, my goal is to keep SPS corals. My current soft / LPS corals are doing good.

Any ideas?

[CM125]

Whats in your tank now? How often are you feeding? how often are you doing water changes? Have you tested your new water before it goes in?

[Reef Pilot]

Are you sure your bio-pellet reactor is working properly? How well are the pellets tumbling? How many ml of bio-pellets are you using? Are you dosing a bacteria supplement like MB7?

I have been running a Vertex UF-20, but let it run out of pellets over the summer. As a result my nitrates got back up to over 50 ppm. I filled my reactor, dosed MB7, and in 3 weeks, nitrates went right down to zero. I used 1000 ml of bio-pellets in my reactor. My tank is 100g.

Let me emphasize the use of MB7 which helps make the bio-pellets work, prevents clumping and mulm, and prevents cyano.

[whatcaneyedo]

It sounds to me like your skimmer can't handle your system volume and stocking. What do you have?

[monocus]

you can get your phosphates lower by using precision solutions phosphate remover.i started a week ago and went from 1.26 to .14.you might not have enough live rock in your system-try making a nitrate reactor-give the bacteria someplace to live

[jagermaier]

Are you running a refugium? If not that will help a lot. Also I found that it takes a long time before bio pellets start to make a noticeable difference but given time it does work. You could also try an algea scrubber.

[Carandiru]

Yeah I think my tank may be overstocked. I'm now starting to use RODI water instead just got the system. Overfeeding was an issue a month ago - I have since corrected that. I'm guessing the AZNO3 and seeding with Prodibio will activate the biopellets. There is approx 500ml in the reactor and they are tumbling well. I'm really at a point where I think I have to wait it out. I'm in the process of adding a basement sump so the refugium will go in there when it's all done. Then adding another 55 gallon tank in the plumbing downstairs. So the total water volume will increase. When this happens I suspect I will have an easier time. The protein skimmer I have is a aquamaxx HOB. I know its a little underatted but it's all I can afford to have right now. Plan is to use the Sicce pump, needle wheel, venturi and bubble plate and move it to a skimmer I'm gonna build out of PVC for the basement sump. Maybe 5 to 6 feet high of clear PVC, some really neat builds on the internet.

The tank stock for the current 90 gallon is:
Juvenile Porcupine Puffer
Tribal Blenny
Juvenile Sailfin Tang
2 Juvenile Clownfish
1 Firefish
2 Blackbar Chromis
Scissortail Goby
Juvenile Snowflake Eel

Bubble Coral - Doing Awesome
Duncan Coral - Doing Awesome
Dendro Coral - Doing OK
Blasto - Doing Awesome
Torch Coral - Doing Awesome
Frogspawn Coral - Doing Awesome
Toadstool Leather - Doing Awesome
Hammer Coral - Doing Awesome
Candy Cane Coral - One has a lot of brown stuff coming off of it, others are doing OK

Pink Green Tube Anemone - Has grown and is doing amazing this thing is incredible

I'll have to post some pictures.

[FitoPharmer]

If you are into DIY projects. You may want to look into a algae turf scrubber as well. They can really help with lowering nitrates.

[Reef Pilot]

Sounds like your skimmer may be inadequate, too. And the output of your bio-pellet reactor should feed into your skimmer for best results.

There are a lot of factors that need to be right for bio-pellets to work properly. But if one or more are missing or inadequate, your results will be disappointing.

[Midway]

+++ for algae scrubber. Was battling high nitrates too, tried lots of stuff, none of them worked. Tried the algae scrubber, my nitrates are going down and down every week. I know scrubbers take some time to work, when they start working, you can't stop them.

[whatcaneyedo]

A skimmer doesn't have to cost a lot to work well. Mine was used and I think I paid about 40% what it would have retailed for. Several of your fish are going to outgrow your current setup and their current tank mates but I suspect you might already know that as its already happening. I've never owned a porcupine puffer but the snowflake will eventually be able to eat many of your other fish so I hope you have a plan. You've got just as many fish in your current system as I have in my 240gal system so I'm not at all surprised that you're having nitrate and phosphate issues. My system does quite well with a skimmer rated for 400gal with a similar fish list so you might want to consider that when you decide to upgrade.

[Carandiru]

Yeah the porcupine puffer will only be moved if he gets too big. The snowflake eel however is planned to be moved to a tank downstairs already before he gets aggressive and eats other fish.

I do like DIY but I'm now wondering about a denitrator coil, I might aswell build one of these along with the pvc skimmer. Do they work? The sound so simple to build just wondering if anyone has built one.

[Midway]

Give the algae scrubber a try man, you won't regret it.

[monocus]

i just finished building 2 of them.i won't really know if they are working properly for a couple of weeks.i used 2 ' of 3" pvc pipe,drilled 2 -1/4 " holes on the top for an inlet and outlet and 50' of 1/4" tubing(you don't quite need it all)after a time of coiling the tubing in the pvc(takes time and patience as well as a few attempts without pinching the damn tubing) ,i stuffed it with 10 plastic pot scrubbers bought from the dollar store.the end of the tubing leading from the top i put a micro ball valve to control the flow,and the other hole i stuck in 3' of tubing about a 1/2" in to drain back to my tank.for the next 2 weeks i'm dripping about 2 drips per second and will slowly increase over the next couple of months

[Carandiru]

Ok gonna do the algae turf scrubber on the pipes going from tank to sump will be easy pesy.