Red Sea NOPOX

[Cancun]

Hi!!! Hoping to get come clarification....just started using NOPOX a week ago dosing 7ml for a 80 gallon once a day following directions....people are starting to make me worried that this could do more harm than good to your coral and fish....any thoughts???

 

[Dkuhlmann]

NoPox is totally reef safe and like I said in your other post you're not dosing enough. My DT is a 40b and my sump is 20 gal. My total est water is 45 gal, I dosed 6 ml per day for 10 days.

 

[Wesus]

I have 80 gal total water system and I'm dosing 4 ml nopox per day. I started dosing about 8 month ago

 

[cincyjim]

I have a 75 gallon setup and dose 3ml a day. Been doing this for about a year or so.

 

[Tweaked]

I would stay the course assuming you have not had a bacteria bloom by now. As you know NoPox is basically an all inclusive carbon source of vodka,vinegar, and sugar which feeds the bacteria. The bacteria will also eat your No3 and Po4 however the ratio is like 4:1 if not 8:1 lol. As the weeks go on test your no3 and drop dosages until you reach desired level. I had gotten down so low I was just dosing 1ml a day on a 100g system for months. If you notice pale corals this is when you feed aminos etc.

 

[rcflyer1388]

I used NOPOX for a long time. Great stuff. In my 90 I dosed 3ml a day. Initially you have to ramp it up slowly until you see nitrates coming down. Then maintain that dose until it goes down to 1ppm. After that cut it in half and see if it keeps going down. Then just adjust until you find that sweet spot to maintain 0 nitrates. I took offline the gfo as well. To bring down the phosphates to unreadable, I was dosing zeostart at .5ml every 4 days. This is to put nitrates back into the system to consume the phosphates as Tweaked mentioned above.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

NoPox is totally reef safe and like I said in your other post you're not dosing enough. My DT is a 40b and my sump is 20 gal. My total est water is 45 gal, I dosed 6 ml per day for 10 days.

NoPox isn't something that needs to be dosed once a day continuously. It is something that you dose at the correct amount for only 10 days then you stop.

Like I said here and in several other threads I dosed according to the Red Sea instructions 3ml per 25 gals of actual water for 10 days as the instructions call for and I was skimming the whole time. After the 10 days of 6ml per day (this is for actual total water of 45 gals) then I stopped dosing it. I checked my nitrates and phosphates on day 11 without dosing and my tests showed undectable amounts of nitrates and phosphates. I have continued to test once per week for both N&P and now 3 weeks of not dosing I am still at not dectable N&P.

IMO none of you are dosing enough to accomplish what this is designed to do. It's designed to feed and grow the nitrate and phosphate eating bacteria. Once that bacteria has grown to the needed amounts for your system just the same way as during the initial cycle of your tank.

So if you dose NoPox properly you only have to dose it for 10 days then stop. It's not needed to continue dosing unless you have not dosed the proper amount.

 

[BrokenSpoke]

NoPox isn't something that needs to be dosed once a day continuously. It is something that you dose at the correct amount for only 10 days then you stop.

Like I said here and in several other threads I dosed according to the Red Sea instructions 3ml per 25 gals of actual water for 10 days as the instructions call

Dkuhlmann - Personally, I like NoPox. That said I have seen you mention several times in a number of threads that the instructions state to only dose for 10 days. I have looked over the instructions several times and I can't find a reference to 10 days. Can you point me in the right direction?

Thanks.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

I'll search for it when I get some time and answer you later. Don't remember off hand because I did a lot of internet searching for how it works and what the instructions were.

 

[Cancun]

Thanks for the great info guys! I just did a 50% water change which dropped my nitrates in half. I did up my dose to 9ml for my 80 gallon....did any of you do like a 50% or so water change once a week for 2-3 weeks to cut the nitrates way down while using the NOPOX to maintain?

 

[Mrw1936]

I actually started a few weeks in advance and did several large W/C twice a week before I started dosing. I'm glad I did, my skimmer has been going crazy now for a while pulling a ton out of the water.

 

[K.C.]

....did any of you do like a 50% or so water change once a week for 2-3 weeks to cut the nitrates way down while using the NOPOX to maintain?

Carbon dosing is ideally a long term strategy and water changes are a short term strategy. While you can certainly combine the two unless you have a very heavy bioload you shouldn't need too many large water changes before the carbon dosing begins to be effective.

Lot of great info the the RED SEA section here on RC.

 

[oh207]

Personally I think 9ml/day is too much to maintain on an ongoing basis for your tank.
Once you passed the initial stage of dosing and testing and your parameters are where you want them, then you should go into maintenance dose. On my 120g that is now approx 5ml/day.
If you continue with 9ml/day indefinitely, then I assure you that you will start to kill your corals from starvation.

 

[Mrw1936]

I only did water changes before the dosing to help get my tank parameters where they should and reduce the amount of detritus and other junk in the tank. Now that I'm dosing i do regular bi-weekly 20% changes. Total volume of my system is around 100 gal. I started at 10mL per day. Two weeks in and I'm at 4mL

 

[reefbroao]

Lolz I'm at 120 total and I dose 15ml per day. No bad effects so far been about a month.
Wasnt dropping my nitrate so I pushed further. Will need to drop to a maintenence dose though.

I'm also sps only and they look the happiest they've ever been