need help with lowering nitrates with zero phosphate using ecobak

[eswgato]

Hello all I'm in need of some advice on lowering my nitrates in my 150g I've been using ecobak pellets for about 2 months and I'm using 600 ml in a aquamaxx reactor I'm running an ati powercone skimmer 200is my phosphate is at zero but my nitrates are at about 30 and they won't go down do I need to add phosphate to lower the nitrates ?

 

[tmz]

Are you using a phosphate remover like gfo or just the pellets?

 

[SaltyWalter]

What about tossing a bag of purigen in there for a couple weeks? It defiantly works, just get a 500ml bottle and change out it once every 5 days, save it all and regenerate it after its all used up. Once they drop you can save the purigen or run a little just like you would GFO

 

[lokii_37]

Are your nitrates causing problems in the tank?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Have you measured phosphate?

FWIW, Purigen is a fine product for removing organics, like GAC, but I wouldn't use it as the main way to reduce nitrate.

 

[eswgato]

Hey guys no im not using gfo only pellets. from my understanding there has to be phosphates for the biopellets to lower nitrates i just dont understand why they wont go down do i need more pellets?Oh and randy yes i measured the phosphate with my hanna meter.it shows 0.00

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

The reason we are asking about phosphate is that if phosphate is too low then the pellets may not do a good job of dropping nitrate. However, that shouldn't happen too often if you are not aggressively dropping phosphate somehow.

 

[eswgato]

thanks for your response randy no im not using any other form of phosphate reduction only biopellets thats why im stumped right now what steps do i take now

 

[tmz]

It's not uncommon for nitrate to go down slowly(sometimes it takes months) when starting out with high nitrate .
Perhaps the bacteria are using ammonia directly for nitrogen and it takes a little longer to get at initially high nitrates in those cases.
Maybe lower phosphate is limiting the bacteria in some cases . 0.02ppm to 0.04 ppm per the Hanah 713 works well for me; .00 ppm per the Hanah is lower for PO4 than I would prefer in my aquarium. and might indicate aphosaphte deficiency.
FWIW, I reduced nitrates (from the 80ppm range to near zero ( somewhere between 1ppm and 5ppm, IIRC) with a sulfur dentirator, intially;water changes on a smaller system might be more practical.; waiting it out might be ok too.
The organic carbon dosing dropped nitrates even even lower after the first few months . They've have stayed low,usually around 0.2ppm for the last 5 plus years with organic carbon dosing( vodka and vinegar in my case).

Providing a little phospahte might also help accelarate tne nitrate redcution in cases where a trure inorganic phosphate defieciency exists. I think those would be rare in a tank with food going in unless some aggressive PO4 removal was in play