Rise in No3 and PO4

[Captain smoke]

Hello everyone I'm in need of your knowledge.

Tell you about my SPS/LPS tank running for 3 years.
150g Tall under Radion G3 running AB+ for the last two weeks.
1.5-2" of sand
150lbs of LR
Two MP40WES one/ side
35g sump
Running BRS GRO/Carbon reactor ( only running Carbon 1.5 cups)
No GFO
Skimz SM201 skimmer running semi-wet
Skimz Biopellet factor RR113 running wide open with 3.25cups of pellets
Return pump of 950gph and two 250w heaters
Measured 150g total with med-heavy bioload WC schedule was 35g every two weeks

Now my story-

Back in late Sept of 2016 I ran into AEFW and I was loosing my SPS so I did my searching and removed all my SPS from the tank to a frag tank, took out my LR with any encrusting on it and removed and SPS I could find. During this time I was dosing NoPox at 4-6ml/day for No3 of 1 and Po4 of .02-.04 with some success other than a roller coaster ride with it. ( wasn't to happy) So I fig since I'm going to be QT my sps for 9-10 weeks this is the time to go to bio-pellets. So BRS had a had thanksgiving sale for the RR113 thats rated to 200g and after talking with BRS and assured that I'm a great candidate for pellets I bought it.

my Pellet headache

Since then I've been in complete stress over my system. I was told to continue no pox and slowly drop my dose and slowly add pellets to 3 cups over 3 weeks. I did this with some rise in no3 po4. fig ok bacteria needs to grow. after 3 weeks I stopped nopox and let the pellets tumble. I continued to check weekly with slow risings. I called BRS and asked them what now. Told to go back to dosing no pox slowly to keep nutrients down and dose bacteria. I did them for 3 more weeks with a slow rise again. I have a small area of cyano about 1"x1" and barley no algae. Called back stop dosing no pox and run the pump at full, dose bacteria. I did this now for two weeks and my no3 and po4 skyrocketed. Im still doing WC at 30g/week to keep the levels down.
heres my reading
nov 15 pellets start
nov 30- n 2ppm po4 .05ppm
dec 7 5n p.06
dec 12 same. no pox started again
dec 18 3n p.01.
dec 21 same
jan 3 same no pox weaning off
jan12 n4 p.05
jan 15-30 same nopox dosed at 2ml every other day
feb told to stop nopox
feb 1 n4 p.09
feb 7 n6 p.07
feb 10 n4 p.1
feb 13 4 p.16
feb 17 n12 p.16



What the heck!!!!! What to do.

 

[Captain smoke]

Out of thought, I checked the drain line from the reactor. The Skimz RR113 is a recirculating reactor with a 1/4" airline for a drain with a valve. The line on my system runs to the intake of the skimmer. Turns out the drain line was 98% clogged at the valve while the top plate was clean of clogs. Im starting to think that my problem was the drain line valve being clogged up. I removed the valve and Ill keep checking on the line every week. If the line gets clogged again I know that 1/4" is not enough and prob 3/8 is needed

 

[bertoni]

Okay, I hope the drain line cleanup fixes the problem.

 

[Captain smoke]

Tested this morning. NO3 @ 12ppm and PO4 @ 0.16ppm using Redsea Pro kit. No change from 3 days ago, not really looking for instant drop but something.

Strange thing is my SPS look great; I have great PE, new growth shown, Colors are a touch darker than before, I have to clean my glass about every 3 days, no cyanobacteria on the rocks and or sand bed. From my numbers shown and by articles I should have cyano GHA And who else knows....

I read articles like i.e. Sanjay and his reef. He said at one time he hasn't check his levels in months and when he did they where high on the charts. Could it be that his tank is mature and stable conditions, even though they're not text book ULN. Does stabilization win over numbers???

 

[mcgyvr]

For SPS...
Stability is key..
Having "low" nutrients is also very important..
I find that as soon as nitrate levels start to get above 10 that some SPS will start showing issues.. Others might start showing issues at 25+

Depending on the type of corals 12ppm of NO3 is not really a "HUGE" issue..
Just keep working on getting it a bit lower..

And personally I found biopellets to be much more "tricky" vs liquid carbon dosing..
I never had much luck with biopellets.. They seemed to take quite a while to start working well (6 weeks at the very least) and never worked really well for me at all..
I'd just stick with the liquid.

 

[Captain smoke]

Getting to that point. Fig Ill let them go for a month and if it fails I'm going back to liquid. not sure if vinegar, or no pox. vinegar is cheap and I like that or make my own nopox
IDK yet

 

[mcgyvr]

FWIW.. I've had great luck with just vinegar..
I did just whip up a bottle of "DIY nopox" not that long ago but really haven't tried it yet..

Now that my tank is "more mature" carbon dosing really isn't needed anymore as nitrates are taking care of themselves..

 

[Captain smoke]

Good to know, what chart did you use for vinegar?

 

[mcgyvr]

Good to know, what chart did you use for vinegar?

The vinegar dosing chart..
Only ever seen one..

and note its pretty "generic"... I use the "snot factor" to know when its too much..
If bacterial snot is forming all over its more than likely time to reduce it some..

 

[bertoni]

You might see some coloration issues with nutrients at that level, and perhaps reduced calcification, but the corals might be fine for a long time as is. I'd proceed slowly since the animals are doing well.

 

[Captain smoke]

my goal is to keep the system healthy and to go slow.

 

[Captain smoke]

Well after more than a month from finding the block line my levels came down but I'm still at 10ppm nitrate and po4 at 0.08ppm using Hanna ULP. Ive been working with Chad at BRS to try and fig out why the pellets are not working to their fullest. I even put a total of 4 cups of pellets, changed speeds of tumble, changed skimmer to supper wet and no change. I started to think whats the reasonings of them not working when my buy started his pellets using a Reef Oct Br-1000ss and BRS pellets and after 3 weeks he's at almost 0/0. I started to think mm could water volume change going through the reactor mater?? I did a test at wide open ( what I had the reactor set at)
1G of water from discharge = 4:30 so in one hr I'm only getting ruffly 13g of water exchange and 312g/day Thats only 2x my tank a day.
The Reef Oct is 265g/h pump that would turn my tank volume 1.7/hr 42x/day if the pump ran at WO.
Could recirculating reactors inhibit bacteria growth?? To my thought is; the water circulates with thin the reactor bacteria grows but its limited because the water is staying inside the reactor and get cleaned over and over again. because the reactor is not getting dirty tank water at a high exchange rate this would limit bacteria growth.

I ordered a Reef Octo Br-1000ss reactor and I will be updating this for future searchings.

I am thinking of trying carbon in the RR-113.....

 

[bertoni]

It'll be interesting to see how well the new skimmer does. Good luck!

 

[Captain smoke]

It'll be interesting to see how well the new skimmer does. Good luck!

Im keeping the SKimz Skimmer I replaced the Skimz recirculating reactor with a Reef Octo biopellet reactor Br-1000ss. I installed it about 1 hr ago and I did the same for the discharge by placing it inline with the skimmer pump