Bio Pellets?

[Jgoal55]

well to provide a bit more info, i did have high nitrates also but I had a bottle of AZNO3 that I got at MACNA so I have been dosing that along with some major water changes and it has brought my nitrates down to about 5 (granted, not sure if its the water changes or the AZNO3 making the biggest difference).

As for phosphates, who knows how high they were before I started treating for the nitrates! To be honest, I didn't test but they must have been off the charts.

But when I posted this, they were still really high even though my nitrates had dropped tremendously.

two days ago I did a big water change (about 50%), I added the GFO to the new IM reactor and put carbon in the media bag. I tested the next day and phosphates were down to .17. I thought maybe I dropped them too fast but luckily everything looks healthy and even better.

As for vodka/vinegar...I gotta read up more on it, but i really need to keep this tank as simple as possible right now. Im really hopping this new GFO reactor and getting back on my WC schedule does the trick.

 

[mrx66699]

Well said Rovster. Is it really possible to have 0 nitrates and highly elevated phosphates or is it test kit error?

thats an easy one mark yes mine are 0 and the po4 is elevated and is now coming down and soon will be at acceptable levels

 

[Jgoal55]

Now the question is where is the phos coming from? Over feeding, old sand, over feeding, over feeding! How many fish do you have and how often do we feed. Usually to much

Sorry, forgot to address this: I feed my fish pretty much one mysis cube a day (sometimes I skip a day). I have 5 fish. I'm not sure if that qualifies as over-feeding but I wouldn't think so as they take down that cube pretty quick. I also have a pretty solid CUC that gets what hasn't been eaten for the most part. A few times a month I add a Cyclopeeze feeding and some reef chili.

My suggestion is vinager !! It cost 2.50 a gallon! Yes I am cheap! And in a little tank you can dose manually. Or get fancy ang get an $80 dosing pump. Read the articles on Rc about vinager! My second suggestion is to make sure you use kalk in top off before you add 2 part. Kalk can help with phosphates also along with maintaining ca and alk! School bus just arrived...... Gotta go! Lol

I'm in the middle of reading a long article about this. It sounds very interesting but like more work than I can handle right now. Again just gonna hope the new reactor plus changing out GFO every 3-4 days or so for the first few weeks works on the phosphates.

The phosphates are already down to .04 so the new reactor is working great! I've changed the GFO out once.

As for the Nitrates, they are hovering in that 5-10 range and haven't gone down after 2 water changes. A few more water changes to go I guess.

 

[rovster]

Those levels seem perfectly acceptable. Unless you're going full blown stix, those nitrates are fine. Even then, many great SPS tanks run nitrates in that range. Good to hear things are working out!

 

[Jgoal55]

Those levels seem perfectly acceptable. Unless you're going full blown stix, those nitrates are fine. Even then, many great SPS tanks run nitrates in that range. Good to hear things are working out!

Good to hear. Thanks. I may see if I can pick up a cheap SPS frag soon and see how well it does.

Gonna do a few more water changes beforehand.