Mhucasey's SPS obsession

[mhucasey]

Update:
I am thrilled with the color and health of the corals after switching to Aquaforest in December, but I have had one minor drawback - rising Nirtrates. There is a decent amount of liverock in one tank, plus about 7.5Lbs of Matrix/Siporax in the sump, yet Nitrates have continued to rise. As you can see, the corals don't seem to mind at this point, but there are limits to everything.

Last week I performed a Nitrate test:

And that made me decide to do something about it. Even a large water change would be essentially a temporary fix. I am always looking to try new things, so I gathered equipment I already had, did some mods, bought 30 dollars worth of media, and put a Sulfur Denitrator on-line.

The problem will be drip drip dripping away in no time....

 

[DiscusHeckel]

Hi Matt,

What do you think is behind this rise?

 

[mhucasey]

Hi Matt,

What do you think is behind this rise?

I think it's because I have 40 fish that I spoil with large amounts of food. There are limits to what any carbon dosing system can take care of. Eventually high nitrates can affect more sensitive fish, so I'm doing this to avoid any complications. Otherwise there are no visible indications that any nitrates present in the tank- no nuisance algae, no brown corals, etc...

 

[swk]

Gosh I wish could get nitrates like that lol! My po4 is around .1 but nitrates never budge over 2ppm.

 

[DiscusHeckel]

I think it's because I have 40 fish that I spoil with large amounts of food. There are limits to what any carbon dosing system can take care of. Eventually high nitrates can affect more sensitive fish, so I'm doing this to avoid any complications. Otherwise there are no visible indications that any nitrates present in the tank- no nuisance algae, no brown corals, etc...

I did not realise that you had that many fish. Did you always have 40 fish, e.g. before you had started to experiment with AF, or did you gradually increase their population recently?

 

[kainic]

I've always been told that nitrates that high would stress corals. It's obviously not your case. Have you considered a false positive related to AF products?
I'm battling high nitrates for quite long having no result with tons of carbon dosing, marine pure block, biopellets, etc. Long time AF user.

 

[mhucasey]

I've always been told that nitrates that high would stress corals. It's obviously not your case. Have you considered a false positive related to AF products?
I'm battling high nitrates for quite long having no result with tons of carbon dosing, marine pure block, biopellets, etc. Long time AF user.

I have thought of it being a false positive, as there are several other AF users with the same thing. What is weird is that there are some AF users with very low nitrates. The sulfur denitrator is a cheap solution to the problem since I had the equipment anyway.
The old instruction to keep Nitrate low to prevent stress on corals is very false, in fact some Nitrate is necessary to keep the richer color. The word is getting out that this is the case but it is slow - I still see a lot of vendors reccomending zero nitrates and zero phosphates:facepalm:

 

[Pife]

I am running af and am now reading over 100 nitrates also.

 

[kainic]

I am running af and am now reading over 100 nitrates also.

How about your corals? Algae?

 

[mhucasey]

Gosh I wish could get nitrates like that lol! My po4 is around .1 but nitrates never budge over 2ppm.

More fish can solve that problem:thumbsup:

I did not realise that you had that many fish. Did you always have 40 fish, e.g. before you had started to experiment with AF, or did you gradually increase their population recently?

I have kept as many as 30 fish in the smaller tank alone without nitrate issues, but I have increased the overall population and average size significantly in the last year. Nitrates had risen to a little over 10 before I started AF, the rise has just continued from there I think.

 

[Pife]

How about your corals? Algae?

Corals are great. With a couple exceptions. I'm bring my po4s down as they are elevated because of my lack of testing. 11 week old son keeps me pretty busy. Basically zero algae. I have a thread in my local forum here if you want to check it out.

 

[swk]

More fish can solve that problem:thumbsup:

The tank is so packed already lol. I can't imagine more fish, but as a former freshwater cichlid guy, I love the idea of more fish!

 

[Pife]

The tank is so packed already lol. I can't imagine more fish, but as a former freshwater cichlid guy, I love the idea of more fish!

What do you feed? How often?

 

[MichaelW]

Have you checked with a different kit? I find it hard to believe with those colors.

 

[Diesel3443]

Update:
I am thrilled with the color and health of the corals after switching to Aquaforest in December, but I have had one minor drawback - rising Nirtrates. There is a decent amount of liverock in one tank, plus about 7.5Lbs of Matrix/Siporax in the sump, yet Nitrates have continued to rise. As you can see, the corals don't seem to mind at this point, but there are limits to everything.

Last week I performed a Nitrate test:

And that made me decide to do something about it. Even a large water change would be essentially a temporary fix. I am always looking to try new things, so I gathered equipment I already had, did some mods, bought 30 dollars worth of media, and put a Sulfur Denitrator on-line.

The problem will be drip drip dripping away in no time....

Welcome to the ridiculously high nitrates lol. Wondering if the denitrator will work. Im still around 50. Thought it may be due to not running the Zeomix, but now im not sure. I was going to run some zeomix, but now Im thinking to setup the media reactor as a denitrator

I have some algae, and i have had a couple random deaths of frags (they were from Bali cultured though, so sometimes they are a crap shoot anyway)

 

[kainic]

What is weird is that there are some AF users with very low nitrates.

My not scientific theory is fouled ProBioS. Mine smelled pretty bad (not as bad as Special Blend) but it is supposed to not be smelly. What about the smell of your ProBioS AF users?

I discontinued my -NP Pro and saw no changes, I discontinued Aminos and saw no changes, I discontinued Vitality and saw no changes. I've now discontinued ProBioS to see if there's any changes.

 

[Diesel3443]

My bottle smells, but not that bad.

Ive also stopped using it to see if anything changes

 

[mhucasey]

My not scientific theory is fouled ProBioS. Mine smelled pretty bad (not as bad as Special Blend) but it is supposed to not be smelly. What about the smell of your ProBioS AF users?

I discontinued my -NP Pro and saw no changes, I discontinued Aminos and saw no changes, I discontinued Vitality and saw no changes. I've now discontinued ProBioS to see if there's any changes.

I've tested the NP Pro for nitrate and there is none. My ProBio S bottles haven't been spoiled at any point. I haven't used a different test kit for nitrates but others have checked and not seen any differences between kits. I'll know if it's real once this sulfur reactor is in full swing in a few days.

 

[DiscusHeckel]

Matt,

When did you purchase your Salifert nitrate test kit? If you happen to keep the colour card of your old Salifert test kit, then please compare it with the present one you are using now. I have read reports on this forum that there was a print error on one of the batches. I have recently helped a fellow reefer in the UK who found an unexplained sudden jump in his nitrate readings. When I prompted him about the colour card issue, he compared the colours on different cards and found discrepancy.

I always test my test kits using FM multi-reference solution to rule out things like this.

Just a thought ...

 

[mhucasey]

Matt,

When did you purchase your Salifert nitrate test kit? If you happen to keep the colour card of your old Salifert test kit, then please compare it with the present one you are using now. I have read reports on this forum that there was a print error on one of the batches. I have recently helped a fellow reefer in the UK who found an unexplained sudden jump in his nitrate readings. When I prompted him about the colour card issue, he compared the colours on different cards and found discrepancy.

I always test my test kits using FM multi-reference solution to rule out things like this.

Just a thought ...

I actually had done that previously, the cards were the same. I have had three separate kits with the same results- and the solution is definitely getting darker as time has gone on, so the kit is showing increased Nitrate. Thanks for the suggestion though. Like I said, I will know soon enough when the reactor kicks in. I should see lower Nitrate coming out and eventually zero. If that happens then the kits are accurate IMO.