Help with nitrates

[Mike-fish]

How long have you had the tank running. How old is the rock

[makana]

The tank is roughly 4 years old as is the rock. There are currently two types of nuisance algae in there.

Any ideas on what I can do? Throw in the towel?

[kien]

Originally Posted by makana

The tank is roughly 4 years old as is the rock. There are currently two types of nuisance algae in there.

Any ideas on what I can do? Throw in the towel?

I'm not sure if they make towels that absorb nitrates. Wait, do they? That would be totally awesome!!

Anyway, have you considered trying BioPellets in a reactor? If set up properly they can do a great job at reducing nitrates.

..seriously do they make nitrate absorbing towels?

[Mike-fish]

Do you have any dead spots in the tank or detrus build ups in the tank

[toytech]

4 years could mean 4 years of detirius buildup in the rocks , you could try taking one rock out at a time and bleaching them then re add to the tank (slowly of course).Bleach eats all the organics in the rocks that could be causing your nitrates.

[Mike-fish]

To give an alternate to toytech's post take a turkey baster or a big syringe to blast off a bit at a time to keep from continually restarting to tank by cleaning the rock heavily like that

[asylumdown]

+1 to Kien's suggestion for biopellets, or some other form of carbon dosing. I think they're making biopellet reactors small enough for a 28 gallon tank these days.

Fixing the problem will likely take a while though, as you need to both exhaust your bank of nitrogenous waste that your rocks are emitting (if that's what's happening), and get the nitrate reducing system up to a capacity that can handle the amount that's being produced. While that happens, you might end up with a cyano explosion (common when people start any form of carbon dosing), and the other algae will keep growing, so it might seem like it's getting worse before it gets better. The key will be to keep removing as much of the algae as possible, as routinely as possible until finally the nitrate reduction system starts to outcompete it and it stops growing back. Depending on your system, that could take a couple of months. If you just run the pellets or carbon dosing and don't actively remove the algae, you will wait a lot longer to see an improvement.

[xenon]

I've was struggling with keeping my phosphates bellow 0.06 and nitrates under 10 ever since I setup my system 8 months ago.

I kept hearing good things about Red Sea NO3:PO4-X so I decided to give it a try. From my understanding its a complex mix of carbons like vodka, sugar and vinegar. They don't tell you exactly whats in the bottle but they do say that it contains methanol. I also smell vinegar but the rest is a mystery.

I never dose anything to my tank other than cal/alk/mag/potassium/iodine and food so I was pretty sceptical about trying this.

My results speak for themselves.

Test kits used:
NO3 Salifert (brand new)
PO4 Hanna HI 713 Low Range

Day 1:
NO3: 10
PO4: 0.06
Dose: 12ml (Stated NO3:PO4-X @ the recommended 2ml/25gallon per day)

Day 2:
NO3: 4
PO4: 0.02
Dose: 6ml (I cut back by 50% because I was shocked how fast it was working)

Day 3:
NO3: 4
PO4: 0.01
Dose: 8ml (increased by 2ml to get my nitrates lower)

Day 4:
NO3: 4
PO4: 0.00
Dose: 12ml (no longer scared to dose the recommended amount)

Day 5:
NO3: 2.5
PO4: 0.00
Dose: 12ml

Day 6:
NO3: 1
PO4: 0.00
Dose: 6ml (I am getting close to my goal so I reduced by 50% to try and maintain)

Day 7:
NO3: 0
PO4: 0.00
Dose: 3ml (cut my dose by 50% again to see if its enough to maintain)

Never once did my corals SNT/RTN. The only side effects I noticed was better coloration and polyp extension.

I was so pleased that I ordered two bottles of Red Sea Reef Energy A/B to compliment NO3:PO4-X.

[makana]

I changed the flow the best I could but its pretty much impossible to avoid dead spots in a nano cube. I use a turkey basted on the rocks every couple days.

I don't really want to put a pellet reactor on it. The tank is already running way more equipment than I wanted. But I guess that may be my only way out at this point.

I don't think I've read about bleaching the rock. It sounds a little harsh and I would expect the rock to be dead after that. I guess if that's the case I could buy dry rock and swap it in for live over time.

[asylumdown]

If you don't want to run pellets, you could always start dosing vodka, sugar, or vinegar (or all three). It's the same idea as pellets, and there's heaps of how to's online, and it doesn't require a reactor. It's a little more fickle to get going, but once it's dialled in apparently it's quite successful.