Frustrated with Nitrates

[Neoz]

Just want to vent a little as I try to learn and understand the chemistry side of our hobby a little better. Mainly Nitrates. I may stumble and jump around a little bit here so bare with me please.

On the first of July my tank will be officially 1 year old. I know that is *still* a fairly young tank for our hobby. And we must have a ton of patience for this hobby. I have patience, lots of it. But I'm also someone who likes to see results. Albeit small results but still something that says "hey your moving in the right direction"

I have been battling Nitrates for almost 16 plus weeks now. Maybe longer thats when I started testing for them. So I do some research and start learning about this vodka dosing. I am into week 9 of my Vodka dosing. Now I'm not looking to start a debate these are only my results from my limited testing experience on my tank. For me it didn't work. Let me go into more details..

My Vodka dosing expierence......
I started dosing 9 weeks ago. Over this time my corals have lost quite a bit of color. Not sure if thats from the vodka or the Nitrates. But they were much better before. When I started dosing my Nitrates were at 50ppm. I test my Nitrates every 3 days and the color nor the number ever change. The test kit was bought brand new and using a Salifert kit. I was hoping to see some kind of result by now. Even if it were ever so slightly. My current dosing is at 5.7ml of vodka for the remainder of this week.

One of the best lessons I have learned so far in this hobby.... Money will not get you beautiful corals or an awesome looking tank. I feel I have bought the best equipment for my tank and am still not reaping the rewards. Lesson learned. I have purchased a new Reef Keeper controller whole setup, 4 new XM bulbs. 4 new MH electronic ballasts. 4 new VHO bulbs. New high end skimmer. Vortech pumps. New bigger sump... As I said I'm just frustrated is all. My hat goes off to all the fellow reefers whose tanks I see here... Great job. Whoever said this hobby would be easy was sadly mistaken....

Ok back on track now.. :crazy: So what should be my next step for my tank? For me I think it should be to stop the vodka dosing and do a major water change to get the tank back to pure? Good idea or bad? Should I change out the rock? I read some were maybe that could be the cause? My rock work looks great. No algae any were. Rock is covered with coraline.

Thats it for now as I look forward to were I go next. I look at it this way, I'm gaining experience every day and I love to learn so I may be down but not out....

 

[Conesus_Kid]

I think we can all appreciate your frustration!

A couple of questions (you may have addressed these already, but I have a short attention span!):

What, how much, and how frequently are you feeding your aquarium?
What is your water change schedule like? (amount and frequency)
Do you have a lighted refugium with macroalgae?
What kind of sandbed, if any, do you have in your display tank?
Have all of your nitrate tests been done with the same test kit (even if it's new)?
Are you experiencing problems with nuisance algae and/or cyanobacteria? (Sometimes we find ourselves chasing numbers on a test kit when everything's actually fine in the display.)

 

[faze07hd]

I would stop dosing for a few weeks and during that time seriously research sugar dosing. I dosed sugar about a year ago and did it the right way. I seriously dropped from 30 ppm to about 1ppm... all that within a matter of 2 or 3 weeks. Since then, 0 nitrates... I had to periodically dose for a couple months after that, but for about 6 months now, no dosing and no nitrates. If you have any questions, feel free to pm me.

 

[toddmh]

Hi Dave,being in the first year of reefing myself I really understand your frustration..I have run into a few very solid brick walls myself with nitrates in my 60cube..I do not have any good answers for you,just want to say I feel your pain and wish you luck.

 

[sedor]

I think most of us can share your frustration, but its those tiny steps forward that help us continue throwing ourselves at this crazy hobby. In regards to your comment "money doesn't give you a beautiful tank." Isn't that the truth! It sure does make it easier though, I have always respected those people who run low budget, beautiful reefs and manually dose everything. I think eventually it just makes more sense to get the good equipment.

I have been vodka dosing for a long time and I am just now starting to see results. It knocked my nitrates down within a few months, but i've been battling phosphates for a long time. I am starting to think they are embedded in my rock. I can finally keep SPS alive, but it browns out pretty quickly. My point is that vodka is not an instant solution, it can take a LONG time to start working, but in the end it will produce results. I don't think you gave it a long enough shot, but then again maybe its not for you. If you've got the space I would invest in a fuge, they are definitely more set it and forget it and cheato does an amazing job of eating the garbage out of the water. If I wasn't so stubborn I would have switched over to a fuge a long time ago, but me and vodka are in this battle for the long haul

 

[Neoz]

Scott
I feed the Tank once a day now.
I was feeding twice a day about 7 weeks ago. Could be still paying for that one.
My water change is 32 gallon every 10 days. I do think that should be once a week. But time doesn't always permit that. So every 10 days is what works for now.
No refugium till I change out to the bigger sump I bought.
My sand bed is shallow its roughly 2" and its sugar fine sand. Going to totally change that out when I install the new sump.
Tests have all been with the same kit.
The only algae I have is a little cyano on the sand bed up front. I thought maybe that was the result of the vodka dosing. Nothing on my rocks are equipment. They are totally clean except for coraline.

faze07hd
Before I started vodka dosing I researched sugar dosing. I only choose sugar dosing because
Before I started dosing Vodka I researched sugar dosing as well. I only choose the vodka dosing because more people were having better success from what I read. Might have to look into that again.

toddmh
Thanks bud. I figured I wasn't alone in this battle. Just trying to be successful so I can put this behind me. I refuse to let it beat me.. LOL


sedor
That was my thought exactly on the good equipment. Was told I needed more flow, why not get Vortechs, better skimmer, new bulbs. Knowing I am in this for the long haul I figured buy new top of line equipment. It should last longer I figured and perform as well.
Heres the weird thing. I can grow stuff. My Zoas and Palys are taking off. New polps all the time. The few SPS I have is growing and has great PE. Just no colors what so ever. All browned out. Orange and green Cap, forget about it. As soon I get some from Adam it loses its colors within days and browns out. Who can't keep Monti cap but can grow Zoas like crazy. Oh yeah me.. :lolspin:

I recently purchased a nice sump with a fuge. Plan on setting it up soon. But it will be a big change over. I have to empty my tank remove it from the stand to drop the new sump in. At that time I plan on swapping out all my old sand to reef grade sand and rescaping my rock and adding about another 100lbs to the tank. I already have the rock and sump. Just waiting on the sand.

How long did you dose Vodka before you at least started to see a drop in Nitrates? For what its worth I plan on having my water tested this weekend. Just to be sure...

 

[tmz]

My experience with high nitrate.
About 2 years ago nitrate soared into the 50 to 80ppm in my well fed system. After adding extra macroalgae refugia , a large remote dsb, a second skimmer and using more gac, without much change over a few months ,I researched a lot about carbon dosing, denitrators etc. I decided to build a dyi sufur dentrator since many noted months without nitrate reduction when carbon dosing. Some claimed sugar was faster. Your experience to date is consistent with the experiences of many.

BTW I tried sugar and several corals did not like it. Lobos darkened and several scolymia closed and receded even at low doses. I will never use it again. Something in the fermentation process just doesn't go down well, in my opinion.

The sulfur denitrator took nitrates to 0ppm over the course of 5 weeks including about 10 days on the front end for cycling it.Wonderful. Great to see that red sample test water come out pure yellow. I would test often just to look at that nice yellow sample wow. However, once the nitrates were very low H2S( hydrogen sulfide)production from the reactor led me to choose to take it off line since I couldn't get the flow and sulfur volume tweaked to the new low nitrate level and tired of messing with it . So I chose to dose vodka.

Since that time about 16 months ago nitrates held at under 5ppm for the first year and now for the last 6 mos or so have dropped to under 0.5ppm.

I have been dosing 26 ml of vodka and 60 ml of vinegar daily for the last 16 mos to the 550 gallon system.(Note: vinegar is 1/8 as strong as vodka as a carbon source,so the 60 ml of vinegar would be about 8 more mls of vodka,ieabout 34 ml of vodka if no vinegar were used or .062ml vodka per gallon of water volume. This is about half of what many dose. Your 5.7ml for 180g is only about .031ml per gallon.

With this mix of vodka and vinegar I get almost no nuisance algae or cyano,just a small patch now and then. despite feeding over 40 fish in the system very well.Polyp extension and color is very good and there is no discernible ill effect on a wide variety of corals from xenia to sps nor any to fish. Zoanthidae in particular seem to grow more than before.
I also continue to use gfo for low range PO4 reduction but use considerably less than I did before carbon dosing. This morning's tests: NO3= 0.2 to 05 per salifert/0 per api,PO4=.04ppm per hanah colorimeter.

Some are now having success with Bio pellets (polymers as a carbon source) but the original pellets are pricey. Warner Marine is coming out with some within a week or so which are less expensive. Likely others will follow. these may be more convenient to use than direct dosing to the tank.

 

[Conesus_Kid]

I like to keep things as simple as possible, so here's what I would do:

-Get a fuge online.
-Buy a new test kit, perhaps a different brand. If you're not having huge battles with nuisance algae and your corals are doing well, I have a hard time believing that your nitrates are actually that high. I would also make sure that you're feeding a quality pellet food and feed frozens sparingly.

Good luck and don't get frustrated chasing numbers on a kit!

 

[Neoz]

Tom do you think I'm dosing too little of the Vodka for my 180? I'm following the schedule and add .5 ML a week. So next week would be 6.2 ML. Maybe I just haven't given it long enough? But I thought I would at least see some drop in Nitrates. Maybe I should purchase some kind of Nitrate tester that gives me real numbers. Not sure what there called. But I will go research what a sulfur denitrator is and what thats all about. Can't hurt to look at everything. But I am pretty limited in space.

Scott I feed Spectrum pellets with garlic, large and small size and frozen PE Mysis every night. Cyclopeeze every 3 days. I plan on getting that fuge asap. But realistically that will be at least a month away. My work just kicked in the mega mandatory overtime.Even have to work the holiday weekend. Yuck.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

PE mysis is a great food but use it very sparingly.

Ditto w/ Rod's Food.

 

[Neoz]

Thats the only thing my CBB will eat. So I almost have to feed it nightly correct? What does your CBB eat Gary?

I thaw the food and rinse it with water in a brine net. Is there anything different I should be doing with the food?

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

you have to feed enough to keep that fish fat so you might not be able to back off certain foods. Too bad you can't wean it to something else.
(I had a CBB that would take pellet.)
Krill is a good alternative to mysids in many cases and it's less polluting.

(Mine doesn't eat any prepared foods- it picks at stuff in the aquarium.)

 

[reefscape15]

Neoz I hear you. I had my 20high set up for about 4 years. It was running a Prizm Deluxe (smaller version) and a Penguin 200 power filter with a Korallia 1 for flow. I used to use Bio-Balls, carbon, and filter floss but after some time I removed everything from the power filter and just let it add to the flow. About a year into keeping my 20 I added a 2.5g HOB fuge. What a world of difference! I used to test all the time and get next to nothing for nitrate, nitrite, and amonia, but couldn't keep the phosphates down. After adding the fuge, phosphates were down to zero and the tank was happy. All my corals were very open and growing, zoas and palys were spreading, and all my LPS almost always had thier tenticles out. I only fed flake about 2 times a week (just a little bit) and even the fish were out swimming and happy. I then bought a 54g corner bowfront. At first, the tank was doing well, and corals were happy as ever and the fish loved all the extra room. That only lasted for about 4 months. I never upgraded the skimmer but did add a Korallia 3 for flow. I kept the HOB fuge and stocked it with any and all macro that my LFS had. BIG MISTAKE!!!!!!!! My tank got infested with first Caulerpa Mexicana (Feather Caulerpa), then the Hair Algae started taking over. I delt with it by manual removal, which sucked big time, and tried a few different fish to take care of it with no results.

Now I have almost nothing in my tank and am just about done tearing it down. I am moving which is why I'm breaking the tank down, but it's kind of a relief just to start over. When I set it back up, I'm going with a skimmer that's rated for at least twice the tank volume, and hopefully picking up 2 Vortech MP10's. I'll be drilling it and using a mag 7 for the return with eductors just to increase the flow even more. I'm hoping to hit between 4000-5000gph in tank flow on a 54g. The sump is going to be a 40 breeder with only a skimmer section, BIG fuge, and return pump section. I think I can get a length of at least 24" for the fuge. Between the very large skimmer, large fuge and super high in tank flow, I'm hoping I can avoid all the problems that I ran into before.

I know it's easy to oversize things for a 54g, but when you get into the size of tank that you have, it gets expensive. Hopefully all your work will pay off and you can be happy with your tank. Best of luck to you!

 

[tmz]

Tom do you think I'm dosing too little of the Vodka for my 180? I'm following the schedule and add .5 ML a week. So next week would be 6.2 ML. Maybe I just haven't given it long enough? But I thought I would at least see some drop in Nitrates. Maybe I should purchase some kind of Nitrate tester that gives me real numbers. Not sure what there called. But I will go research what a sulfur denitrator is and what thats all about. Can't hurt to look at everything. But I am pretty limited in space.

I don't know your system well enough but I do know many posted slow results( months ) in nitrate reduction when stating with higher levels . I feed similarly and the .062 per gallon is works for me . That would work out to around 12 ml for your system size . The carbon ecourages both aerobic and anaerobic activity. The activity in the water column is likely more aerobic with the bacteria taking the N in NO3 for food along with some PO4. . It may take longer for anaerobic activity to take hold. there is no real data on these processes.Adequate surface area may play a role.
The sulfur denitrator takes a lot of space and effort to get it going and monitor it, in my experience. It does ,however, work great. Essentialy sulfur in a hypoxic environment in a reactor acts as a food source for bacteria that use the oxygen in NO3 for respiration releasing N2(nitrogen gas) and sulfate.

Alternatively you may wan't to try some of these new bio pellets(polymers) which seem more convenient than dosing carbon directly to the tank or using a denitrator. Here are a couple of links:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1847060

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1694529