Nitrifying Bacteria

[gmann]

First of all i dont keep SPS and am not trying to achieve a ULNS. I am merely trying to keep my nitrate/ phosphate levels in check.

Currently my phos is at 0.04, while nitrates are at 50ppm. water changes have not done anything, but my coralsare still looking good. i currently run 2 bio bricks and 1 nitrate brick.

after talking to someone at brightwells, he mentioned that i needed to carbon dose in order for the bricks to have their full effect.

i dont really want to use nopox again, so just wondering which of these combos have you fellow reefers found to work?

mb7/ bio fuel
zeoback/ zeo start
pro bio s/ np pro

[Galizio]

If you not trying to run ULNS I suggest you to go a different route than carbon dosing... my personal experience is that with the carbon dosing sps do well but zoas and lps were a bit harder to deal with.
You should try to figure it out where the nitrate came from, if water changes doesn't work you must have a kinda die off somewhere ...
did you try to use a different a Nitrate test kit?

About brightwell , yes they recommend before putting the brick in the sump/tank to seed the brick overnight in some aquarium water and some MB7...
I had good experience dosing with brightwell, but my glass had to be clean everyday but nitrate and phos were super low.
last 2 months I'm using AF and have to say nitrate and phos climbed fast but now after a few WC and putting back zeolite in reactor the value are getting back down and under control . Not sure if the values going up was due it to the switch to aquaforest.
One more thing of the 3 , the zeo it is the only one that not need to run a phos absorber media , like Rowa phos for example...


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[Myka]

Have you confirmed the PO4 and NO3 numbers with secondary testing?
Are you using GFO to keep PO4 that low?
Why is nitrate so high?
How old is the tank?
How big is the tank?
Are you using a protein skimmer?
If so, which brand/model?

[gmann]

Have you confirmed the PO4 and NO3 numbers with secondary testing? no, using salifert tests for NO3, and hanna for PO4. will get RS kits this weekend
Are you using GFO to keep PO4 that low? no was using FM Bacto balls & chemipure blue. bacto balls removed now
Why is nitrate so high? I have no idea, ive done 2 big water changes, barely feed. I assume from reading another post that my PO4 is too low
How old is the tank? 13 months
How big is the tank? 250 gallons including sump
Are you using a protein skimmer? yes
If so, which brand/model? reef octopus sro3000

[Galizio]

Also about those brightwell bricks. There are 3 way to run them,
In water low flow
In water with flow going thru
And above water with little flow going thru(for this one I really suggest u to check Ryanerikson tank build to have an idea how to use the brick for nitrifying bacteria)
Which one of the 3 you use?



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[gmann]

I put them in low flow right in front of a baffle so that water has to pass through them to get to the next compartment.

[Galizio]

I do not remember correctly as I read the instruction long time ago, but probably that way is not considered low flow, I'm not sure... I'm going to check the instructions again , but that seems like all the flow go thru and don't know if that way work for NO3... still I'm not sure about it


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[gmann]

I showed jack kent a picture, he said it was fine. he basically insisted I use a carbon source (bio fuel preferably lol) other than nopox (wood ethanol, not trying to start a debate, just what he replied to me) to get the bricks working properly.

[Galizio]

Lol.. yes they want to use their products...
Biofuel and mb7 and neo zeo was working really good for me, the only downside in my case was the glass was getting brown stuff every single day, after talking to Jack he was thinking was silica in water, but told him I use Rodi 0 ppm... that's why I switched and now have to clean glass occasionally...
You can try the brightwell , as I said worked well for me ,but honestly when I looked around to see some recent tank update could not find much about people still running the brightwell neo zeo system....
One last thing , in my case, when I started with the carbon dosing , is not just going to be dosing the 2, there are also so many other thing you have to look at, lots of google reading lol..


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[gmann]

lol soooo true. this hobby is never ending research.