Michael Vincent
Premium Member
Howdy all,
This is my first post to the club and I'm reaching out for some advice.
Lets start with where I'm at: 180 gal tank 20-30 gal sump. Medium flow, good lighting, variety of corals and a few Anems. Oh and 25 fish! that someone likes to feed a lot!
Stable parameters tested weekly for months: PH 8.4, Alk 8.5, Cal 490, Mag 1250-1350, Nitrates 22, Phosphates .20
Water treatment: Large Bio Pellet Reactor feeding skimmer, Large Reactor with PO4 cubes, Socks, and Caulerpa planted in refugium
Dosing: I dose Alk daily which drops about .1 per day if not dosing. Magnesium once and awhile when i see it dropping back towards the 1250 range. With a crushed coral sand bed and weekly cleaning my Cal has stayed up and has not require dosing yet.
I think I can conquer phosphates with adding more PO4 cubes as the reactor is only half full. But I don't feel like adding more bio pellets (4/5 full) is going to get my nitrates from 22 down to 2. This is where I'm stuck.
For the heavy bio load is my only nitrate solution to move to a sulfur reactor or can i use a de-nitrification product to drop it 20 and then the system will hold stable at 2? Let me know your thoughts as the bio load will not go away.
View attachment 14152
This is my first post to the club and I'm reaching out for some advice.
Lets start with where I'm at: 180 gal tank 20-30 gal sump. Medium flow, good lighting, variety of corals and a few Anems. Oh and 25 fish! that someone likes to feed a lot!
Stable parameters tested weekly for months: PH 8.4, Alk 8.5, Cal 490, Mag 1250-1350, Nitrates 22, Phosphates .20
Water treatment: Large Bio Pellet Reactor feeding skimmer, Large Reactor with PO4 cubes, Socks, and Caulerpa planted in refugium
Dosing: I dose Alk daily which drops about .1 per day if not dosing. Magnesium once and awhile when i see it dropping back towards the 1250 range. With a crushed coral sand bed and weekly cleaning my Cal has stayed up and has not require dosing yet.
I think I can conquer phosphates with adding more PO4 cubes as the reactor is only half full. But I don't feel like adding more bio pellets (4/5 full) is going to get my nitrates from 22 down to 2. This is where I'm stuck.
For the heavy bio load is my only nitrate solution to move to a sulfur reactor or can i use a de-nitrification product to drop it 20 and then the system will hold stable at 2? Let me know your thoughts as the bio load will not go away.
View attachment 14152