PURA NitrateLock, the lazy man's solution...

[Stray32]

I have been battling nitrates since I started my tank 18 months ago. I don't have a fuge or denitrator on my tank, and my weekly water changes have slipped a bit because I have been so busy.

I spotted this PURA NitrateLock yesterday on a website, and all the reviews were positive.

So a few questions:

1. Have you guys ever heard of this stuff or used Nitrate remover in a reactor before?

2. Will this stuff work in a TLF Reactor?

 

[cloakerpoked]

Where are your nitrates at right now? What is your bio-load like in the tank?

 

[Stray32]

Haven't checked in a few days, but they have never been zero, but have never been at a toxic level either.

My bio-load is fairly low, only 6 fish in my 75 gallon tank, with feeding only once a day. I just know my nitrates should be lower than they are, and I can accomplish that through a few large water changes, but keeping them low has always been an issue.

 

[cloakerpoked]

Are you using a barebottomed, regular sand bed, or deep sand bed substrate system?

 

[Stray32]

Regular sand bed

 

[cloakerpoked]

I've read about people using vodka to increase protein skimmer efficiency, but I'd be very careful doing that, and in all honesty, the benefits of doing it just don't seem to outweigh the risk to me personally (plus wasting perfectly good alcohol.) Running some activated carbon may help some, but the best advice I could give you is to
1.) increase nutrient export, through a larger skimmer or some type of refugium setup
or
2.) Add live rock to increase biological nitrate reduction
or
3.) Do water changes very regularly and aggressively.

Personally, having massive amounts of rock has worked well for me. I have close to 300 pounds in my system of about 200 gallons of water with a very low bioload, and the skimmer really doesn't pull much out, because I don't really put much into the tank. Because I have so few fish, I only really feed twice a week, so I don't add a lot of nutrients to the water myself either. The live rock is able to provide enough for my livestock to graze on that I don't need to feed daily. The tank also has a deep sand bed which I'm sure helps some with nitrate reduction, but the point is I have intentionally kept my bioload of my tank very low to control nitrates that way.

 

[bugbdon]

maybe try zeovit or neozeo or......i think it's called prodi bio or something to that effect. all of these use a probiotic and a carbon source to increase nitrate consumption

kent also makes a nitrate remover, which i've heard ppl use with success

 

[bugbdon]

whoops my bad......the probiotics don't increase nitrate consumption.......they reduce ammonia...which in turn reduces nitrate....either way your nitrates will drop

 

[Stray32]

Well I bit the bullet and ordered a fluidized bed filter and some NitrateLock. I figured it couldn't hurt and I have room enough in my sump for the filter. I will let you guys know how it does.

Cloaker, to your point, I definitely need more live rock in my tank, but I have a very inconvenient, large overflow box in my tank, which takes up entirely more room than necessary. It's definitely time to rearrange things and make better use of the space I have.

Here is a pic again of my tank, you can see the huge overflow in the back center of the tank.