Nitrate ?

[sandwi54]

I don't know what to think about the study relating carbon (not all carbon products, I can't remember which. It may have even been uncontrolled carbon dust). I know Scott Michael made some anecdotal comments on the subject too. I think whatever is there is going to be blamed for HLLE until someone actually comes up with some real evidence.

Yeah I agree with you. There just hasn't been enough studies done yet. Until then, I will continue to not use carbon. My filter sock traps detritus and makes the water clean, and protein skimmer pretty much does the same thing as carbon, if not more.

 

[Monkeyfish]

Well... I turned off the carbon reactor and I think I found where my nitrates are coming from.

When I designed the refugium/sump I made it a bit too big so there's very little room to work in there. I added some live rock and macros and away we went. About once a month I'd siphon some of the guck out of the sump, but never moved the rocks around. I finally bit the bullet, got a long algae scraper to use as a lever to move the rocks and went to work.

There were spots in the refugium where the "detritus" was over an inch thick. After 3 hours of sucking out gunk, I called it quits. I'll probably go back in later this week to finish the job. Oy. Hopefully, this will cut down on the nitrate production so I can finally bring the level down via water changes.

No carbon. Lower nitrates. Take that, HLLE!

 

[sandwi54]

aah there you go! once you clean that up you should start seeing nitrate drop in a few weeks, with water changes and a working refugium.