Reducing Nitrates
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.
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