Parameters stable but to high - what to try next?

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.
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The best and safe way to get nitrates down is to do large water changes back to back. I just went through it I was between 20 and 25. Hanna Checker was out of reagent everywhere so I couldn't test for a little over 2 months and when I finally got reagentsto test it had climbed that fast. And another thing that will help you with your bio load is to cut back on feeding I know it hard but feeding several times a day and smaller amounts would be more beneficial let me know how it goes I'll keep following you Mike thanks for posting
 
 
@drex Now you know Lisa has already cut back to "starvation rations". I need serious feedback on industrial strength Nitrate removal. 
 
Doing large water changes is the best way if you want get with Marc he just went through it himself just as I am Hanna Checker was out of nitrate reagent so I couldn't test and it got away from me so I'm having to do it myself cause mine are up in the 20's again 
 
+1 on water changes. But I've also noticed a reduction in Nitrates whenever I dose a bacteria product like Microbacter 7. 
 
I decided to give the old NoPo a run and between that and the weekly water change the numbers have been dropping.  I'm going to back of the NoPo a bit and keep an eye on the numbers as my PO4 is now at .06 and Nitrates 14.4.  Since the Nitrates still have a bit more to go than the Phosphates I'm going to try and get them more in balance before doing more NoPo as I don't want to completely bottom out the Phosphates.
The good news is the tank has enough bacteria running that with a little encouragement they can bring the numbers down themselves without another reactor being added to the mix.
Thanks for the feedback guys. 
 
For that size tank I would nopox/carbon dose and then once down watch the feeding. If phosphate gets close to bottoming out you can dose phosphate or try adding a nitrate remover like purigen.
 
I have noticed when I feed if I dont shut off return, feed, and kick wavepumps on and off a few times to stir it up and let the fish grab everything my nitrates/phosphates rise. 
 
I would pay more attention to the feeding and I think you will be fine. As others suggested, a few big water changes would get you close, but I can understand not wanting to do 60-80 gallon water changes! Your nitrates don't need to be 2, 5 or less should be fine. Gorgeous tank!
 
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