three months and no reduction

[regalangelfish]

Hello everyone. I'm hoping you guys can tell me what I'm doing wrong. its been three and a half months and nitrates have dropped down from 40 to 20 within the first few weeks and then stalled at 20. I test regularly and still at 20 after increasing my bio pellet media. I noticed a slight reduction of pellets so they seem to be consumed. I have a 105 gal reef and dose 4 ml of liquid feed and 4 ml of fish feed a day. nitrates are not moving at all. what should I do?

 

[regalangelfish]

just checked its been 4 months since I started bio pellets. anyone have any suggestions?

 

[shifty51008]

what are your phosphate levels? if they are at 0 then your nitrates won't go lower, they need nitrates and phosphates for them to work.

 

[regalangelfish]

what are your phosphate levels? if they are at 0 then your nitrates won't go lower, they need nitrates and phosphates for them to work.

PO4 was tested yesterday at .14 no3 at 20. I took GFO offline yesterday to see if my tank can handle it. prior to removing the gfo, I reduced the amount of GFO in the system and have seen po4 increase from .07 to .14 all that time NO3 didn't move. as mentioned I started with 500 ml of bio pellets and added 200 ml more for total of 700 ml a month ago and my flow through the reactor is at full throttle. I have the bility to lower the flow without lowering the tumble of the bio pellets. However I havent done this as nitrates have stalled at 20.

am I doing the right thing by taking the gfo offline? I've read that po4 and no3 have some sort of relationship but don't know if they are inversly proportional ie: on goes up the other down??? any info on this (links) would be appreciated. thanks

 

[tmz]

I think No3 reduction should occur with .07ppm PO4 as well as it would with .14pppm.

I'd just wait a bit longer. I know of one report where it took over 6 months for nitrates to drop to low levels, ie around 0.2ppm. Is there enough surface area in the system for the bacteria to colonize? In my case they hung around 5ppm for a very long time then suddenly dropped.

 

[regalangelfish]

yeah I have plenty of live rock and 2" deep sand bed as well as miracle mud in my refugium. can I ask... do you think I should remove GFO completely from the system? If so what would you say is the maximum I should allow Po4 to rise befor puting GFO back in? I do have a tank fully stocked with SPS and LPS and inverts. not too many fish though. Thanks for your guidance.

 

[tmz]

I would not personally let it go much higher than it is, now,.14 ppm . I'd probably keep using a little gfo. FWIW, I don' t use pellets; I use vodka and vinegar in moderate amounts ( 40ml vodka equivalents for 650 gallons) and have for over 5 years. I feed about 50 fish in the mixed reef system heavily and maintain NO3 at 0.2 ppm and PO4 at 0.02ppm to 0.04 pppm without any gfo since November but if PO4 started to rise ,I'd use gfo again.



Do you have much nuisance algae or cyanobacteia?

If the sand and/ or mud are old particularly under macro algae, it/ they might be clogged up and part of the problem .

 

[regalangelfish]

I would not personally let it go much higher than it is, now,.14 ppm . I'd probably keep using a little gfo. FWIW, I don' t use pellets; I use vodka and vinegar in moderate amounts ( 40ml vodka equivalents for 650 gallons) and have for over 5 years. I feed about 50 fish in the mixed reef system heavily and maintain NO3 at 0.2 ppm and PO4 at 0.02ppm to 0.04 pppm without any gfo since November but if PO4 started to rise ,I'd use gfo again.



Do you have much nuisance algae or cyanobacteia?

If the sand and/ or mud are old particularly under macro algae, it/ they might be clogged up and part of the problem .

thats pretty incredible... awesome levels.

I have very little algae on the rock. a few trouble spots but nothing scary. Cyano just popped up but again nothing on the sand and one or two very small areas that I blow off when I see it populate. The only problem is I get short green fuzz on the glass. Not shure what it is? its not hair algae and not filamentatious stuff either.

as for sand... the mud is fairly new and thee sand is siphoned every so often to keep detritus down. I was thinking a couple of sand sifting stars. I know its a no no but I thing slight aggitation of the sand is a good thing. thoughts?

 

[jgalen0025]

Fwiw I had the same problem for 2 months my bps werent activating so I took gfo offline and in about three weeks they were active and in about a month nitrates went +25 to 1ppm
I too have a recirc bp reactor with effluent control.

 

[tmz]

I use larger nasaurius snails for a bit of sand stirring. I don't think the star willl live long.

 

[regalangelfish]

Fwiw I had the same problem for 2 months my bps werent activating so I took gfo offline and in about three weeks they were active and in about a month nitrates went +25 to 1ppm
I too have a recirc bp reactor with effluent control.

whats your water volume?
how much flow through your reactor?
was your tank inhabitants ok during the 3 week time without GFO?
how much bio pellets were you using?