Nitrates Still High - Using NOPOX
 

Hi all,

I’m beating my head in... been using NOPOX for 9 Months now and had weird results but Nitrate would not go below 25... now it’s back up to 50 and Phos is at 0,5.

There was a stage when my phos was 0 but Nitrate was still at 50 and wouldn’t budge. I Read up on the Redfield Ratio and thought that maybe if I fed more flake I could increase my phos, and in return reduce my Nitrate... but no luck... so as it stands I am not at 50 Nitrate and 0,5 Phos...

I am dosing 3ml NOPOX for 100l,
Running Matrix,
Running Seachem de Nitrate
Ceramic rings
Red Sea Reef Spec skimmer
Tons of live rock
Tank is a Red Sea Max 130D 130 liters

What can I do???


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Okay, let's go through the basic steps. I'd check the nitrite level, because nitrite will confuse nitrate test kits. That's a low probability event, though.

I'd guess that you might want to increase the NOPOX dose. It's basically a mix of vodka and vinegar, and that dose might not be enough. I suspect that cutting back on feeding will help a lot. There's no need to worry about the Redfield Ratio in this context, since you're not feeding phytoplankton, and denitrification can occur without net phosphorus uptake.

Due a water change 20-40% bi weekly. Test new saltwater before adding for nitrates. Reduce feeding as mentioned above. What type of test kits are you using?

My nitrates and po4 were high...
Added a phosban reactor
Stopped feeding frozen foods, now 1x per week and rinse them
Stopped feeding phytoplankton (what is effect of phyto?)
Cut back reef foods to 2x per month....

Date. 12/23
Temp. 77.3
Sal. .025
Ph. 7.8 (How to raise other then temporary?)
Amo. 0
Nitrite. 0
Nitrate 10 (was as high as 80)
Kh. 8.7
.ca. 450
Mg. 1400
P04. .18

Upped nopox to 3ml per 25gallons and put on doser for consistency,

pH at 7.8 is normal for a tank in a house. There's no way to raise the pH other than reducing carbon dioxide in the water column, which often comes down to reducing the carbon dioxide in the ambient air. For some tanks, Kalk as topoff or a scrubber on the protein skimmer help.

Have a co2 scrubber helped a tad.

Was gonna run a line outside, now that the gardeners, are done throwing lye and fert ..

But the seashell balance and marine ph boosters are just temp, I tried the ph boost once and ph went up for an hour or 2 then back to 7.8

I’m using Salifert and Red Sea kits to test. Should I increase to 4ml? Also , I’m using Seachem de-Nitrate, should I remove that?


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The De-Nitrate is artificial live rock, and it's probably helping a bit, but most people who use it seem to say that they need a lot of media to make much difference, which makes sense. I'd leave it in the system.

I'd start increasing the dose slowly. 4 ml is a reasonable goal. A bacterial bloom might show up at some point, but they tend to be fairly easy to handle.

I agree with above posts that you need to find the source and treat that first.

Let's just assume you have a 'high' nitrite/nitrate level for now, one of the BEST sinks I've ever had to control such were clams. Just remember that they are pulling your Nitrate down because the day you sell or trade one off, your nitrate may spike.

I'm assuming you're not using tap water or bad ro/di filter media...

Proper RO from the LFS. TDS 0


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do you have sand bed and if so how old and what kind of substrate, grain size? Any missing fish that might have died behind your LR? Just trying to find a source of all of that nutrient!

i did the nopox for over a year too and it worked great...it came dowm from like over 100 down to 40 and thats where it stayed for months and could get it to go down from there... it kinda plateaued at 40...then i decide to try something different ..i switched to just vinegar..and viola..it went down to 0...not sure why tho but it worked...

I don’t have a DSB and the tank is a year old... no missing fish lol


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Did you follow the dosing chart?


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I used nopox to reduce my nitrates from 40 to 0. I followed the dosing guide for about 2 weeks with no reduction. I kept increasing the dose about 2 mls a day to I finally got to 15 mls a day. It about 6 weeks and it got down to 0. Then I started backing down to I started to see a rise in nitrate. My daily dose is now 6 mls a day. Hope this helps.

Thanks!


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I would do a full water change. Test new water before to make sure nitrates at 0. Don’t do any feeding for a day or two and see if levels rise. This way you can start to narrow down what is going on. Also is all your filtration clean? Make sure u don’t have some area in back of tank / sump that is filled with debris. I would not increase nopox till u figure out what is going on.

increase in small increments ...otherwise you might end up with a bacterial bloom/snot...

I'd be careful about making any large water changes. They can do more harm than good. Exposing live rock to air sometimes causes significant die-off.

Make sure your skimmer is clean and working well. It is the skimmer that exports the waste when carbon dosing.

No3po4x
 

I believe I read or saw video from brs using no3po4x should only be used with
Very low no3 and po4 or you will end up compounding your problem.

Stop using until parameters are in check
Hope I am correct and I have helped:

The point of carbon dosing is to remove mineralized nutrients from the water column. I don't know why the levels would need to be low before dosing. If anything, lower levels could be more of an issue because the carbon could allow bacteria to outcompete corals for nutrients.

Have you thought of adding additional bio-filter to help naturally reduce nitrates? Look into the marinepure bio blocks (or whatever they are called).

Also I didn't see...how big is your tank and how many fish? Additional details would help.

Tank is 130 liters and has 7 fish


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