Reducing Nitrates

[Reef Pilot]

I have an old tank (100 g with a sump and lots of live rock) with a heavy bio load, and I notice that my nitrates are pretty high, about 40 - 90. I do change 20% water once a month, and have a skimmer that produces about 1/2 a cup of black skimmate a week. I don't have any delicate corals, but the tank is full of Colt Corals, Frogspawn, large Bubble Coral, big Toadstool, some zoas, and some other smaller corals, and they seem to be doing fine. I have to add CA and buffer (to keep KH up) every few days. I have about 10 fish, biggest being a 5 inch Foxface, and 4 inch Yellow Tang, also smaller butterflies and fair sized Cinnamon Clown (with a bulldog attitude), who seems to have a bottomless stomach.

Anyway, fish and corals that I have all seem healthy, but would like to add some more delicate and colorful corals, and prune back more of my other corals. But I think I should get my nitrates down more before I do that. I could change water more often, but that gets expensive with salt.

I read and heard that some people use carbon dosing and bio pellets to help reduce nitrates (and phosphates). So I decided to try the Vertex Pro-Bio pellets with a reactor. However, after reading up on that, saw some cautions about how to get started, and the risk of creating Cyano red slime, and other problems. And the instructions recommend using a nitrate bacteria starter, as well as something to get rid of the Cyano.

I notice there are a few products available for this, but are there some that people would recommend for the bacteria starter, and Cyano?

Any advice or help with his would be appreciated. Thanks.

[Aquaria]

I'm using brightwells microbacter7 it's what the chick at jlaquatics recommended Same pellets

[Myka]

40 ppm nitrate is big, 90 ppm is huge. If you are looking at delicate corals you should aim to be under 10 ppm. I'm not into the bio pellet rage as I have heard too many negative reviews and have seen too many tanks with massive cyano outbreaks from using them. Imo, a little elbow grease will get you the same results.

Nitrate is created by organic breakdown. Basically you need to d a better job cleaning your tank and the nitrate will come down. However, your live rock and sandbed will leech nitrate for quite some time. You need to prevent organic breakdown from happening. Do you have any bio media in your filters? Bioballs, ceramic rings, anything like that? If so, you need to slowly remove these by 1/4 each week until they are all gone. How about sponges or pads? Any sponges/pads need to be replaced (not rinsed) every week at least.

Next, take a look at the sandbed. How deep is it? The deeper it is the more likely it is to collect detritus. If the sandbed is really old and has never been cleaned I would suggest removing it. Removal can be fatal to the tank if precautions aren't taken...ask if you want more info.

Next, take a peek at powerheads. Is detritus settling on the sand anywhere? If so, add powerheads or adjust current powerheads to blow there so detritus can't settle there anymore.

Then start feeding your fish less, and make sure you just feed a little at a time so it doesn't blow all over the tank. Switch to pellets instead of flake or frozen. When feeding frozen thaw in a cup of water, and then strain the food so that dirty water goes down the drain instead of in your tank.

Finally, if you have a heavy bioload, consider finding homes for a fish or two. What do you want more? Corals or fish?

[Reef Pilot]

Thanks for the response, Myka. Good advice, and can't disagree with anything you said. The best solution would be to take my tank apart, clean everything, rearrange my live rock and corals, and basically reset up the entire tank. I plan to do that down the road, but would like to try a few things first to see if I can bring down the nitrates without redoing everything. Like I said, everything in the tank looks pretty healthy, except my nitrates are high.

Currently I vacuum my sand bed, clean my live rock with a tooth brush where I see some debris or algae, and clean my filters about every 2 weeks, but there many parts that I can't get at, so no doubt that is contributing to the nitrate problem with the collection of detritus. I do have lots of flow in the tank, so that is a good thing. But I do have some sponge and filter material in the filters to catch any floating debris. But I try to clean those frequently, before they can produce too much nitrate, but quite possibly they are contributing to the problem as well.

I try to feed my fish carefully, mostly freeze dried, which floats and gets eaten before it settles. Also, I feed pellets, but again make sure they are consumed. They do get some frozen, maybe once a week, but that is well washed in RO water, before going into my tank. And I don't think I have too many fish for my tank size. I have already sold a couple fish, one large Bird Wrasse, which was a real pig eater. So my fish bio load has come down. My biggest eaters currently are the Foxface, and the Cinnamon Clown. The Foxface keeps growing, though, so I guess that doesn't help.

In any case, I still want to try the bio pellet route, just to see if this would work on my tank. If not, or it causes other problems, will then have to get on with redoing the tank. I have read and talked to some people that said it worked wonders for them, with reducing nitrate, and handling a high bio load.

So, I am still looking for suggestions on what bacteria starter to use, and how to kill cyano. From what I have read, those are very important cautions with using bio pellets.

[Reef Pilot]

Originally Posted by Aquaria

I'm using brightwells microbacter7 it's what the chick at jlaquatics recommended Same pellets

Thanks, I can try that. Also, have heard that Chemi-Clean works well to kill Cyano. Have also had some recommend dosing with Vodka prior to introducing the bio pellets.

Any more thoughts on those suggestions?

[apexifd]

Originally Posted by Reef Pilot

Thanks, I can try that. Also, have heard that Chemi-Clean works well to kill Cyano. Have also had some recommend dosing with Vodka prior to introducing the bio pellets.

Any more thoughts on those suggestions?

heard some people crash their tank using chemi-clean. you can get some sand sifter to get rid of the cyano on sand, and turkey baster to blow them off the rock.

They will eventually go away when you get your nutrient down.

and you don't really need to start vodka pior to pellets. just start with 1/2 of require amount, and add more slowly. Usually microbacter7 from brightwell or similar products should also help in terms of adding more diversity of nitrifying bacteria.

[apexifd]

Originally Posted by Aquaria

I'm using brightwells microbacter7 it's what the chick at jlaquatics recommended Same pellets

Renee???

[Myka]

ChemiClean works well. The only people that crash their tanks are the ones who don't read the directions. It's really not a big deal, just keep the tank aerated with a stone or let the skimmer overflow (remove the cup).

I like the Prodibio products for bacteria. They have a BioClean product that works really well. It's a combination of two of their products.

A sulphur denitrator would be the easiest way to lower such high nitrate, but it can be a tricky piece of equipment. Best run with an ORP controller.

[Aquaria]

Originally Posted by apexifd

Renee???

Prob, brown Curley hair? Works up front

[Reef Pilot]

Originally Posted by Myka

A sulphur denitrator would be the easiest way to lower such high nitrate, but it can be a tricky piece of equipment. Best run with an ORP controller.

I have never heard of a sulphur denitrator. But I have heard that dosing with vodka works also, and was told to try that first. Sounds almost too simple. Anyone have any experience with that?