So in order to help combat my nitrate issues and to hopefully prevent further instances from happening, I decided to give a new product a try about 8 weeks ago.
I've never used any of the Brightwell products before but their price point was much more competitve than probidio or zeovit so I thought I'd give it a shot.
I'm not running their full blow zeolith system but simply using a combination of the Xport-NO3 media and MB7 dosing to keep the beneficial bacterial populations well stocked and diversified. I also picked up some amino acids to dose as well as some marine snow as I've heard that it can help prevent cyano.
Here is a close up of what the Xport-NO3 media looks like. First thing I thought of was that they look almost exactly like the bite size mini wheats.
Prior to ordering, I wasn't exactly sure whether or not this media acted like a sponge and absorbed nitrate from the water column or if it was simply an inert substrate meant to be colonized by beneficial bacteria as their product description is a bit ambigious.
After seeing the product in person, I'm assuming it's just an inert substate with tons of surface area for bacteria to colonize. However, there are these little yellow "chunks" embedded into the media as well which I'm assuming may be some sort of bioplastic used as a food source for the bacteria.
Prior to first use, you are required to "seed" the media with a mixture of tank water and microbacter7 for 24 hours. After this has been completed, you can then add the media to a filter bag or reactor.
Here is the media inside the reactor downstream of my carbon and GFO. You can sort of see the yellow chunks I was speaking of earlier in this pic.
The product instructions also state to replace a 25% of the media every 3-4 months which doesn't make much sense to me if it is simply meant as a substrate for bacterial colonization. If for some reason, nitrate levels do not seem to be dropping after a few weeks, Brightwell also recommends adding a carbon food source for the bacteria which they offer in the form of Katalyst (biopellets which I'm assuming should be run inline prior to the Xport NO3 media) or Reef Biofuel (liquified bioplastic similar to Instant Ocean Nitrate Reducer).
After running the Xport NO3 for ~8 weeks and dosing the MB7 whenever I'm home from work (at least once per 10 days) I have noticed a substantial difference in the health of my corals as well as nitrate level in my system.
Prior to running this product, I was using only biopellets and despite this, I was still getting readings of 10-20 ppm nitrate using a titration based test kit. The test kit was very expired however and my other test kit usually showed nitrate levels <10 ppm. Now I'm reading zero on both test kits and the SPS are all starting to show signs of color darkening. Hopefully after a few more months, their color will recover to the extent they were prior to the tank crash last April.