Chemicals. Or Cheato?

[BAYAREA25]

My natraits have gone up nd I was wondering how to lower dem. Like what is better to use the chemicals to lower the natraits or cheato? And how fast do they work?

 

[birch03]

Now thats a debatable one there. Some people like using chemicals and others like taking a natural approach. I have used many chemical products over the years and none seemed to be the miracle cure. How often are your water changes? I use the natural approach with weekly water changes and mine are quite low.

 

[BAYAREA25]

I Do weekly water changes. But I've been over feeding. Which I should of known better. And now Im feeding less. About just once a day. But the nitraits are still high. =( but my fish are doing fine. Corals seem fine for now. But they seemed to stoped growing.

 

[birch03]

Lack of growth I think is one of the side affects from higher nitrate levels. Try feeding everyother day, keep with the regular water changes. On some of my smaller tanks I do run a small reactor with nitrasorb in them and it seems to bring it down to an ok level. On my new setup in my home I am trying Zeo for nutrient control and it seems to be working so far. I know many on here will argue about Zeo but what works for one person may not work for another. If you wanna check it out go to www.zeovit.com

 

[Aquarist007]

Re: Chemicals. Or Cheato?

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14921085#post14921085 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by BAYAREA25
My natraits have gone up nd I was wondering how to lower dem. Like what is better to use the chemicals to lower the natraits or cheato? And how fast do they work?

I notice you have a refugium---do you have a deep sand bed in there--it can be quite effective for bringing down nitrates as can chaeto macro algae

You have to encourage the chaeto to grow for it to be affective:
harvest it regularily
when you harvest it rip it away from the ball and spread the remainder of the ball out across the surface of the water---split ends encourage growth as does making a larger surface area for adsorbtion
adding iron to the tank will encourage growth

keeping the light on the refuge 24/7 will also encourge growth

 

[BAYAREA25]

Yea I do have a deep sand bed in my fuge. Nd I do have cheato but the light I had was so ineffective! My cheato was bearly surviving than thriving. I got a new light. And I hope it works. I was about to just give up on cheato. I was getting annoyed by it. But ill give it another shot.
I got a clamp light. Since I saw another forum that these lights work for cheato.