N/P reducing pellets (solid vodka dosing)

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I don't wanna get too excited but I MAY finally be seeing some results. I'll check again tomorrow and hopefully the nitrates will have gone down more.
 
Rwpdunne said:
Anyone noticing there sump sock getting blocked quicker?
Click to expand...

I wouldn't use any socks , because the bacteria needs to be skimmed of , when they cloug the socks , the N/P that the bacteria have consumed stays also in that sock making it easy for cyano to start to do his ugly tricks again...

greetingzz tntneon :)
 
daveonbass said:
I don't wanna get too excited but I MAY finally be seeing some results. I'll check again tomorrow and hopefully the nitrates will have gone down more.
Click to expand...
I hope they keep going down ! :)
One thing i also experienced with my skimmer couple of days ago :

In the morning i was checking foam/skimmate production of the previous night , i saw that he didn't produced anything.
So i waited till the evening and there where no signs of production , it was quite a while since i've cleaned the skimmercup so did so ,what i saw was unseen :eek2: :hmm4: the neck section was completly plugged with thick brown dry gunk.
It looked a bit like you know what in the toilet , and it sure smelled liked that :D !!!
After i cleaned the cup and neck , my skimmer immediatly began to produce tons of foam.


lesson that i learned -----> clean your skimmer regulary else the gunk will plug it !

greetingzz tntneon :)
 
I've never gotten that much gunk in my skimmer. Like I said I'm having to do wet skimming just to get some stuff out. I wish I could afford a better skimmer but it's the best one I have, a DAS EX1.

hopefully once I start to feed more, if my nitrates ever go down, then I will hopefully see more skimmate.
 
tntneon said:
I wouldn't use any socks , because the bacteria needs to be skimmed of , when they cloug the socks , the N/P that the bacteria have consumed stays also in that sock making it easy for cyano to start to do his ugly tricks again...

greetingzz tntneon :)
Click to expand...

So you wouldnt use a sump sock? wouldnt the sump get very dirty if i removed it?
 
ok it's late...but I'm always up late at night. It's 4:00am and I did these tests at 3:30am.

Salinity - 1.026
PH - 7.76 (a bit low for sure, but I don't have a reverse lighting schedule and this is a normal drop, usually 7.9 at night and 8.2 durring day)
CA - 360ppm (gonna either add a little, or wait to see if it's back up after a WC)
Alk - 8
Mag - didn't test (sorry)
PO4 - 0 (again, undetectable from my API test kit, so it's low)
NO3 - 80-160 (It's hard to read the different shades of orange/red, bright red, and a slightly darker red...but it's up there)

I'd guess that my Nitrates are up around 100 or so...again it's hard to read those kits...they are really only good to know high, med, or low (red, orange, yellow). All the shades in between are difficult to discern.
This is even more distressing because around 12 hours earlier in the day it really did look like the test was reading 40-80...and I was getting excited that the Nitrates might be coming down. But then tonight, they are back up. I was hopeing that the biopellets were starting to work more...but it seems they are phosphate limited and so might not be able to work properly.

I'm planning to do a large WC on the tank as soon as I can get that much Salt mixed up. I may do one LARGE WC, around 85-90%, or if that takes too much time (and stress) then I may space it out and do two or three partial water changes over the course of two to three days. I know it's stressful to the livestock...BUT...I want to do the one BIG WC to see how long it takes to get the nitrates back up to the current level. If it's a short period of time...like a week...then there is obviously a bigger issue for me to deal with.



Again, any ideas are welcome...

dave
 
daveonbass said:
ok it's late...but I'm always up late at night. It's 4:00am and I did these tests at 3:30am.

Salinity - 1.026
PH - 7.76 (a bit low for sure, but I don't have a reverse lighting schedule and this is a normal drop, usually 7.9 at night and 8.2 durring day)
CA - 360ppm (gonna either add a little, or wait to see if it's back up after a WC)
Alk - 8
Mag - didn't test (sorry)
PO4 - 0 (again, undetectable from my API test kit, so it's low)
NO3 - 80-160 (It's hard to read the different shades of orange/red, bright red, and a slightly darker red...but it's up there)

I'd guess that my Nitrates are up around 100 or so...again it's hard to read those kits...they are really only good to know high, med, or low (red, orange, yellow). All the shades in between are difficult to discern.
This is even more distressing because around 12 hours earlier in the day it really did look like the test was reading 40-80...and I was getting excited that the Nitrates might be coming down. But then tonight, they are back up. I was hopeing that the biopellets were starting to work more...but it seems they are phosphate limited and so might not be able to work properly.

I'm planning to do a large WC on the tank as soon as I can get that much Salt mixed up. I may do one LARGE WC, around 85-90%, or if that takes too much time (and stress) then I may space it out and do two or three partial water changes over the course of two to three days. I know it's stressful to the livestock...BUT...I want to do the one BIG WC to see how long it takes to get the nitrates back up to the current level. If it's a short period of time...like a week...then there is obviously a bigger issue for me to deal with.



Again, any ideas are welcome...

dave
Click to expand...
I don't get it , that your nitrates can doubble in a few hours ???
Either something big is decaing in your system or your nitrate tester is out of date .
Did you tested your water with another testkit ?
I've seen the pics of your tank on previous page , i can't imaging a tank so clean and having 80-100 ppm nitrates in there .
I had all sorts of algea (before carbon dosing liq or sol.) and then i had like max. 5 - 10 ppm nitrates and 0.05 ppm po4 .

greetingzz tntneon :)
 
dude I know...it's crazy. I DO freely admit that the test earlier that day may have had a little more or less water than the night test...but to see such a change...that was disturbing for me. But again that may just be human error...the testor is obviously flawed (me).

BUT...the test kit is NEW...and I mean it new...I got it right when I got the pellets put in. I wanted this to be an accurate set of tests. Accurate in the fact that I would see MOVEMENT either up or down...not the literal use of the term accurate. And so far they just keep rising. And I'm not going to blame it on an old test kit...it's new.

I only have the one test kit...but i'm getting to the point of wanting to buy one of those expensive Nitrate Monitors from Pinpoint. But man they are pricey.

I thank you for the comments on my tank...and yes there is a tiny bit of algae...but the foxface keeps that all mowed down so it's not long and stringy, but most of the rock is BARE. Also there is no algae in any kind of refuge...I dont' run a lit fuge...you can see it in my videos. It's dark and benthic/criptic. There are lots of pods EVERYWHERE, they are almost plague like at night. I want to get a mandarin simply cause I know he'll be fat and happy. (but i'm not) The corals that are there...are growing and seem happy. they include. Green polyps, hammer coral, RBTA, ricordia yuma (2 big violet/grey ones), 8-9 orange florida rics, and a strange type of brain coral that was a hitch hiker that seems to like where it's at...and is growing from about a centimeter when I first noticed it, to about 3-4 cm now.

I'm weirded out that I can grow such strange things...and yet others that are new and healthy seem to bleach and die in a week...MAINLY SPS! I just can't keep them in those waters. And I believe it's mainly due to the nitrates being too high.

All othre parameters seems to stay just fine without drastic fluctuations.

I'm stumped....
 
180+55reef said:
so I have a LPS dominated tank, recently my gonis and aussie elegances dont look as good as they should , As this like nutrient rich waters is it possible that the pellets are hurting these corals?

I am finally getting some gunk in my skimmer
Click to expand...

Yep, consider removing 1/2 of pellets for a bit if corals still look bad, also feed them and maybe dose some AA.
 
My nitrates have climbed back up to 15ppm
I have one of thoes h2o blocks in my sump should i remove it could it be causing the nitrates to be going back up my phosphate is 0.008
 
daveonbass said:
dude I know...it's crazy. I DO freely admit that the test earlier that day may have had a little more or less water than the night test...but to see such a change...that was disturbing for me. But again that may just be human error...the testor is obviously flawed (me).

BUT...the test kit is NEW...and I mean it new...I got it right when I got the pellets put in. I wanted this to be an accurate set of tests. Accurate in the fact that I would see MOVEMENT either up or down...not the literal use of the term accurate. And so far they just keep rising. And I'm not going to blame it on an old test kit...it's new.

I only have the one test kit...but i'm getting to the point of wanting to buy one of those expensive Nitrate Monitors from Pinpoint. But man they are pricey.

I thank you for the comments on my tank...and yes there is a tiny bit of algae...but the foxface keeps that all mowed down so it's not long and stringy, but most of the rock is BARE. Also there is no algae in any kind of refuge...I dont' run a lit fuge...you can see it in my videos. It's dark and benthic/criptic. There are lots of pods EVERYWHERE, they are almost plague like at night. I want to get a mandarin simply cause I know he'll be fat and happy. (but i'm not) The corals that are there...are growing and seem happy. they include. Green polyps, hammer coral, RBTA, ricordia yuma (2 big violet/grey ones), 8-9 orange florida rics, and a strange type of brain coral that was a hitch hiker that seems to like where it's at...and is growing from about a centimeter when I first noticed it, to about 3-4 cm now.

I'm weirded out that I can grow such strange things...and yet others that are new and healthy seem to bleach and die in a week...MAINLY SPS! I just can't keep them in those waters. And I believe it's mainly due to the nitrates being too high.

All othre parameters seems to stay just fine without drastic fluctuations.

I'm stumped....
Click to expand...

What brand of test kit? Send a sample to a lab, there is a service that advertises in Coral Magazine. I agree with other poster, no way to go up that high that fast. Also sps may not like corals you keep, could they be touching new sps? Foxface maybe eating sps. Where do you get frags? SPS needs careful care, many LFSs are not up to speed.

If your NO3 is that high and PO4 is zero you need something like a Sulfur reactor to get numbers in balance.
 
Rwpdunne said:
My nitrates have climbed back up to 15ppm
I have one of thoes h2o blocks in my sump should i remove it could it be causing the nitrates to be going back up my phosphate is 0.008
Click to expand...

Is that po4 level a typo?? I don't know of any hobby monitor that measures in thousandths of mg/L (unless you've had a professional lab test your phosphate)

Have you stopped using the filter sock now?? It may be that there is more POM left to decay if you suddenly stopped using the filter socks. Is the BP reactor effluent directed at the skimmer intake to export the bacterial accumulation??

Can you link to the H2O block?? Not exactly sure what that is. If it's what I think it is (a large porous block intended for bacterial proliferation and indicated for nitrate reduction), then it's possible that it can be leaching nitrates as the pores get blocked with decaying POM (about as helpful as bioballs - not helpful at all).

Jeremy
 
Last edited:
Rwpdunne said:
My nitrates have climbed back up to 15ppm
I have one of thoes h2o blocks in my sump should i remove it could it be causing the nitrates to be going back up my phosphate is 0.008
Click to expand...

What was low prior to going back up? What time of day did you test? When do you feed?

15ppm may not be that bad. I seldom get a 0 reading several days in a row. 10-20 ppm is common. I got excited this week when I got 2 days of zero! So I fed everything, 20ppm last night!

:o
 
I might have missed it but has anyone suggested the makers of these pellets design and manufacture a reactor dedicated to the use of these pellets?
 
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