how to lower nitrates and phosphates?

[codydemmel4]

My nitrates and phosphates are too high for my liking and I would like to do something about it.

Last test AFTER a 20% water change was phosphate at 0.09 on the Hanna ULR and nitrate was above 64 on the red sea test kit.

I have a 180 gallon tank, bubble magus b11 skimmer (only 2 weeks old but it works really really good). I have cheato in my sump and it grows great but obviously cannot keep up with the nitrate level in my tank. My tank is 9 months old and the SPS have been doing great lately but I am having to clean the glass everyday, etc so I know my nutrients are too high.

Currently do not have gfo, carbon or anything else in my tank. I am looking for suggestions on how to lower these down to around 5-10 nitrate and around 0.05 phosphates.

[Pife]

Originally Posted by codydemmel4

My nitrates and phosphates are too high for my liking and I would like to do something about it.

Last test AFTER a 20% water change was phosphate at 0.09 on the Hanna ULR and nitrate was above 64 on the red sea test kit.

I have a 180 gallon tank, bubble magus b11 skimmer (only 2 weeks old but it works really really good). I have cheato in my sump and it grows great but obviously cannot keep up with the nitrate level in my tank. My tank is 9 months old and the SPS have been doing great lately but I am having to clean the glass everyday, etc so I know my nutrients are too high.

Currently do not have gfo, carbon or anything else in my tank. I am looking for suggestions on how to lower these down to around 5-10 nitrate and around 0.05 phosphates.

I would carbon dose to get your nitrates come down which will also pull your phosphates down some and my experience. I've also found that dosing probiotics bacteria really seems to help my tank get and stay balanced.

Sent from my SM-N920T using Tapatalk

[rtparty]

Instead of throwing darts and hoping one sticks...why are your nitrates that high? Are you feeding too much? Don't enough biological filtration? It could also be that your tank is phosphate limited (.09 is nothing to worry about) and your nitrates can't come down naturally.

[Captain smoke]

try bio-pellets. worked for me got me to 0/0 in a month with no water changes.

[codydemmel4]

Originally Posted by Pife

I would carbon dose to get your nitrates come down which will also pull your phosphates down some and my experience. I've also found that dosing probiotics bacteria really seems to help my tank get and stay balanced.

Sent from my SM-N920T using Tapatalk

I was also just worried about the nitrates as I thought lowering them would help lower phosphates and mine really arnt all that high.

Originally Posted by rtparty

Instead of throwing darts and hoping one sticks...why are your nitrates that high? Are you feeding too much? Don't enough biological filtration? It could also be that your tank is phosphate limited (.09 is nothing to worry about) and your nitrates can't come down naturally.

I guess I do feed too much but I want a high energy reef, with a lot of feeding but also a lot of export which is why I am looking at ways to accomplish this before my SPS get into colony size and I will not have to do as much export as they will take up more nutrients.

[codydemmel4]

Originally Posted by Captain smoke

try bio-pellets. worked for me got me to 0/0 in a month with no water changes.

I really do not want to get to 0/0 but I will do more research on them. I also like doing water changes to replenish some trace elements

[rtparty]

Originally Posted by codydemmel4

I really do not want to get to 0/0 but I will do more research on them. I also like doing water changes to replenish some trace elements

0/0 is a very dangerous place to be. Nutrient starved tanks don't tend to fair well long term.

I starved my tank (didn't think it was starved until my new kits came in and confirmed it) and I've battled chrysophytes, cyano and now dinoflagellates all because of nutrients being 0/0. Once I started dosing nitrate and phosphate, things have really turned around and the dinos are dying off

[reefmutt]

Cody, what’s your photoperiod for the cheato light and what type of light?
I found that my cheato pulled my n from 50ppm to below 1 but had only a small impact on p. With your numbers, maybe all you need is to get that cheato growing a bit ore..

[tripdad]

Hey Cody, In looking at your thread it looks like you don't have a lot of rock in the display, what about the sump? If there is not much then I would suggest you put about 1 - 1.5 litres of Siporax in a reactor, low flow, and see what happens. Mine went from 10 ish to 0, I took some out, adjusted flow but sometimes still need to dose to bring them up. It's slow to come online, but should not shock anything and can be adjusted.Just my thoughts.

[codydemmel4]

Originally Posted by reefmutt

Cody, what’s your photoperiod for the cheato light and what type of light?
I found that my cheato pulled my n from 50ppm to below 1 but had only a small impact on p. With your numbers, maybe all you need is to get that cheato growing a bit ore..

It is around 12 hours. the cheato is growing a ton. I have to trim around half a 5 gallon bucket twice a month at least.

[codydemmel4]

Originally Posted by tripdad

Hey Cody, In looking at your thread it looks like you don't have a lot of rock in the display, what about the sump? If there is not much then I would suggest you put about 1 - 1.5 litres of Siporax in a reactor, low flow, and see what happens. Mine went from 10 ish to 0, I took some out, adjusted flow but sometimes still need to dose to bring them up. It's slow to come online, but should not shock anything and can be adjusted.Just my thoughts.

I do not have a lot of rock, but I added more then I first had as I wanted to add more sleeping spots for my fish. but still overall not a lot of rock. I definitely would rather have to feed more and have something that brings my nitrates down then just relying on what I am now and feeding less.

[reefmutt]

I think you could add 2 to 4 more hours on your cheato..
Maybe add more intensity or more light as well?
Scott May have a point about a lack of biofilter, although I saw the extra I added to my tank do absolutely nothing.
The AF life biofil is fully seeded matrix like stones. It’d certainly give you, at least the potential for immediate nitrated reduction..

[codydemmel4]

Originally Posted by reefmutt

I think you could add 2 to 4 more hours on your cheato..
Maybe add more intensity or more light as well?
Scott May have a point about a lack of biofilter, although I saw the extra I added to my tank do absolutely nothing.
The AF life biofil is fully seeded matrix like stones. It’d certainly give you, at least the potential for immediate nitrated reduction..

The section I have the cheato is not that big either, it is just 17x17 inches which for a system this size it probably is not big enough. It stops tumbling like two days after trimming it.

I also get some hair algae growing in my cheato, never in the DT anymore but sometimes in the cheato and also sometimes the cheato like "floats" to the top and gets air bubbles in it even though I do not see any air bubbles coming over the baffle before.

The light I have is the mars hydro light and it is around 8 inches off the top of the cheato. I could definitely add more light to either side of it but I am not sure if that would be much.

I would love to just go the natural route with the cheato but not sure if my fuge section is big enough for this system. So I am debating on removing the cheato, start carbon dosing which would also leave me a frag section in my sump which could be beneficial in a couple months when I start fragging. Thinking out loud here haha


Before I had a problem with low nutrients, now it is too high because my bioload is large but I want a high energy reef. I just need to figure out the best way to lower my nitrates which I think will lower my phosphates too and my system will be more balanced like yours is now Matt.

Fish I have now:
Purple Tang
Blue Powder Tang
Blue Eye Kole Tang
Yellow Tang
2 Female bluethroat triggers
1 Male Blue throat triggers
2 blue chromis
1 Copperband butterfly
2 clownfish

[DiscusHeckel]

Hi Cody.

I would keep the chaetomorpha and in addition consider dosing liquid carbon source. I would recommend Tropic Marin Elimi NP as I used it personally. I would start with a very low dose initially, e.g. 1/8th of the recommended dose and increase it very slowly every two weeks ( a few millimetres at a time) to enable heterotrophic bacteria to build up slowly. Don't expect quick results and increase the dose fast. This is likely to create problems later on because heterotrophic bacteria always go for more readily available nitrogen source in the water column first, i.e. ammonia. For this reason, you will not observe any drop in nitrates initially. They then look for the next nitrogen source in the nutrient hierarchy, i.e. nitrates. So, be patient.

You still need some additional surface area for bacteria to colonise in your system. If you have space in your sump, you could put some fist size (or bigger) live rock for sponges and other filter feeders as well as bacteria to colonise on them, but you need fairly fast flow to facilitate their colonisation though. You can even consider using siporax in a reactor with a very slow water flow as already suggested above.

Finally, I would feed my fish moderately to ensure that nutrient input and output are balanced. There is no point in insisting on feeding a lot if you cannot export excess nutrients. Rather than feeding a lot a few times a day, I would spread the feeding throughout the day and feed smaller amounts if it is feasible to do so. This will prevent ammonia spikes and may thus reduce the frequency of the build up of green algae on the glass.

[Vinny Kreyling]

Can I offer a possible solution based on anecdotal evidence from 2 different tanks?
A 450 Gallon running with only power heads because of leaks in the overflow box.
No sump or skimmer for about a year now.
Phosphate over the max reading of a Milwaukee photometer & nitrates through the roof.
Mine, a 250 gallon reef with skimmer, GFO, Calcium reactor, & tunze pumps for circulation.
We both are using ESV Reef Essentials+. Nitrates & Phosphate levels have dropped & continue to do so. Within a few weeks there are differences.
With all the money we spend try a small bottle & see if it helps. This was formulated on the 20,000 gallon reef @ the Long Island Aquarium.

[jda]

Real pacific live rock. Dry/dead rock will not help you for years.

[codydemmel4]

Originally Posted by DiscusHeckel

Hi Cody.

I would keep the chaetomorpha and in addition consider dosing liquid carbon source. I would recommend Tropic Marin Elimi NP as I used it personally. I would start with a very low dose initially, e.g. 1/8th of the recommended dose and increase it very slowly every two weeks ( a few millimetres at a time) to enable heterotrophic bacteria to build up slowly. Don't expect quick results and increase the dose fast. This is likely to create problems later on because heterotrophic bacteria always go for more readily available nitrogen source in the water column first, i.e. ammonia. For this reason, you will not observe any drop in nitrates initially. They then look for the next nitrogen source in the nutrient hierarchy, i.e. nitrates. So, be patient.

You still need some additional surface area for bacteria to colonise in your system. If you have space in your sump, you could put some fist size (or bigger) live rock for sponges and other filter feeders as well as bacteria to colonise on them, but you need fairly fast flow to facilitate their colonisation though. You can even consider using siporax in a reactor with a very slow water flow as already suggested above.

Finally, I would feed my fish moderately to ensure that nutrient input and output are balanced. There is no point in insisting on feeding a lot if you cannot export excess nutrients. Rather than feeding a lot a few times a day, I would spread the feeding throughout the day and feed smaller amounts if it is feasible to do so. This will prevent ammonia spikes and may thus reduce the frequency of the build up of green algae on the glass.

Hello!

This makes sense and I will look into your recommendation. The only problem about the fish feeding is I work all day till around 6pm and the lights are only on till 9pm so only 3 hours I could feed unless I have my auto feeder going again but I really do not want to do that as that is when I had excess algae.

I would say I have an easy 150 pounds of live rock in the DT but I could add some rubble in the sump underneath the skimmer since it is on a stand to skimmer properly. I probably have around 1000 gph going through the sump.

[codydemmel4]

Originally Posted by Vinny Kreyling

Can I offer a possible solution based on anecdotal evidence from 2 different tanks?
A 450 Gallon running with only power heads because of leaks in the overflow box.
No sump or skimmer for about a year now.
Phosphate over the max reading of a Milwaukee photometer & nitrates through the roof.
Mine, a 250 gallon reef with skimmer, GFO, Calcium reactor, & tunze pumps for circulation.
We both are using ESV Reef Essentials+. Nitrates & Phosphate levels have dropped & continue to do so. Within a few weeks there are differences.
With all the money we spend try a small bottle & see if it helps. This was formulated on the 20,000 gallon reef @ the Long Island Aquarium.

I will look into this, thanks for the response!!

[slavetonet]

Hey Cody,
I can only speak about my tank - how I tackle my nutrients issues.
These are my fish list in my redsea 525XL.
1 x large purple tang
1 x large yellow tang
1 x large sailfin tang
1 x large gold-rim tang
1 x blue eye bristle nose tang
1 x large blue face angel
1 x large magnificent fox face
1 x large gold spot rabbit fish
3 x adults clown fish
1 x large 6 line wrasse
1 x large matted file fish

They are fed 4 times a day on auto feeder and 1 time night hand feed.

I have ULNS sps dominated tank.
Running 4 basket of siporax, 1 x bag of macropore (purigen equivalent), 1 bag of activated carbon and 1 x protein skimmer in my sump.
Dosing my own traces elements, amino acids, fatty acids, and vitamins with your usual Alk, Cal, Mag, Potassium.

I don't run macro or gfo or carbon dosing (pellets or liquid)
but I have lots of siporax and lots of sps corals to absorb all the fish waste.

[rtparty]

Originally Posted by jda

Real pacific live rock. Dry/dead rock will not help you for years.

This is completely false. My "dead dry rock" has been too effective at stripping my tank of nitrates and phosphates. I'm now dosing N and P to maintain my levels. Bacteria will colonize dead rock just fine and there are thousands of systems to prove that point

[codydemmel4]

Originally Posted by slavetonet

Hey Cody,
I can only speak about my tank - how I tackle my nutrients issues.
These are my fish list in my redsea 525XL.
1 x large purple tang
1 x large yellow tang
1 x large sailfin tang
1 x large gold-rim tang
1 x blue eye bristle nose tang
1 x large blue face angel
1 x large magnificent fox face
1 x large gold spot rabbit fish
3 x adults clown fish
1 x large 6 line wrasse
1 x large matted file fish

They are fed 4 times a day on auto feeder and 1 time night hand feed.

I have ULNS sps dominated tank.
Running 4 basket of siporax, 1 x bag of macropore (purigen equivalent), 1 bag of activated carbon and 1 x protein skimmer in my sump.
Dosing my own traces elements, amino acids, fatty acids, and vitamins with your usual Alk, Cal, Mag, Potassium.

I don't run macro or gfo or carbon dosing (pellets or liquid)
but I have lots of siporax and lots of sps corals to absorb all the fish waste.

This is something I would like to look more into, you have a very good bioload and obviously your export can take care of that which is what I want as I think and have seen from other systems that gives the best colors and growth as it is pretty much how it is in the wild. However how I get to the high export is what I am trying to figure out as that is the point I am stuck on now.

[Geeray]

Originally Posted by codydemmel4

This is something I would like to look more into, you have a very good bioload and obviously your export can take care of that which is what I want as I think and have seen from other systems that gives the best colors and growth as it is pretty much how it is in the wild. However how I get to the high export is what I am trying to figure out as that is the point I am stuck on now.

Reread the last sent of Slavetonets post “lots of sps corals to absorb the fish waste”

Don’t discount this last sentence it’s a huge part of the equation. A tank full of sps is a very effective nutrient reducer. This is what you’re missing right now until everything fills in. You need to balance nutrients in with nutrient export and sps load is a huge part of the export equation. I can tell you I’ve had to double my feeding in the last year because of the growth in my tank. For now I would cut feeding to reduce nutrients some and slowly raise feeding as the sps grow. Just for perspective honestly I think a tank full of sps pull the nutrients down at least as efficiently as my 8” cone skimmer.

[IdahoCindy]

Following.

[codydemmel4]

Originally Posted by Geeray

Reread the last sent of Slavetonets post “lots of sps corals to absorb the fish waste”

Don’t discount this last sentence it’s a huge part of the equation. A tank full of sps is a very effective nutrient reducer. This is what you’re missing right now until everything fills in. You need to balance nutrients in with nutrient export and sps load is a huge part of the export equation. I can tell you I’ve had to double my feeding in the last year because of the growth in my tank. For now I would cut feeding to reduce nutrients some and slowly raise feeding as the sps grow. Just for perspective honestly I think a tank full of sps pull the nutrients down at least as efficiently as my 8” cone skimmer.

I do agree with this and I stated this earlier in this thread too about when my SPS gets larger I will be able to remove whatever extra export system I am doing now.

I will look into feeding less but it is not like I am feeding an insane amount. I am feeding a frozen ice cube of my own homemade fish food, which is probably around 3-4 cubes of regular frozen food a day.

[Diana A]

Originally Posted by Vinny Kreyling

....We both are using ESV Reef Essentials+. Nitrates & Phosphate levels have dropped & continue to do so. Within a few weeks there are differences.....

where are you purchasing this? ESV website doesn't list this as one of their products.