Reducing Nitrate Using Carbon Source???

[Myka]

Originally Posted by crimper

Here is my 2 cents...

Zero nitrates and Zero Phosphates is not good for corals.

The reason why reefers are doing this is they want dosing control on the nutrient levels to attain those pastel (I call it pale) coral coloration. Meaning after stripping their tank, they need to dose those nutrients back on the level that they want them in. You're always chasing numbers.

I almost got a tank crash last Spring break as I went away for a week. My reef suffered a bacterial bloom that stripped my tanks NO3 and my PO4 levels for several days due to carbon source overdosed. When I came back most of my colonies have STN at the bottom.

Running ULNS requires lots of time, testing, tweaking and gazillion patience.... this means $$$$$. I tried running my reef on ULNS and I won't do it again. It feels that I am on the knife edge all the time. The margin of error is very slim. I realized that it is not for me as I can't be away for several days.

I must admit my corals have the best coloration running on ULNS. But I realized this is not for me. If you are after coral growth, that's a different story, most experienced reefers that I know run their nitrate higher than 2ppm to achieve good growth.

I agree with absolutely all of this.

[Animal-Chin]

My 2 cents from my experiences, others have have different results from what I understand.

Carbon dosing is a bit tricky and has some risks so if you don't have to do it, I wouldn't.

I started with NoPox and had some so so results. My nitrates were really high due to moving all my rock work around and mixing up the sand so I felt I had to do something. I started dosing NoPox and about a month in had some issues with sps loss and tips burning. My nitrates were down to about 10 but my coral were really not happy. I decided to discontinue dosing and moved to bio pellets.

I really like biopellets. They took some time to kick in so it was slow, slow is always good. Now they just tumble and do their job. I started using them in July last year and I'm still on the same bag so they last a long time too. My tank is really overstocked but I love my fish, the pellets keep my nitrate consistently under 5. I'd say around 2 or 3. If I had less fish I'm sure I'd be at 0.

Now I still have to keep my alk down. If I hit 8 or above my tips on my acro burn. So really, I'm probably slowing growth by using the carbon but my tank is totally algae free. NO hair algae at all and I did have issues before I started. So my trade off is slower growth for no algae so I'll take that.

If you don't have an algae issue and your coral look good and are growing, I'd just not mess with what you're doing to be honest. You really have to watch your parameters when carbon dosing or one day you look at your tank and your huge colony of acro all has white tips, nothing more frustrating than that!

Your colors fade too if you don't diligently feed your coral. All my sps faded in the low nutrient environment but if you feed your coral supplements the colors can come back.

My question is do you want all the extra work just to chase a number or are you battling something like hair algae?

Oh, side not, cyano feeds on carbon so if you add carbon you will probably see a cyano bloom....

[DKoKoMan]

If it ain't broke... why fix it