Will do, thanks for the info, i'm hoping to take off the carbon dosing after a week and see if my numbers stay down, the less i have going on the better for me.
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DSA 135....
- Thread starter art13
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Will do, thanks for the info, i'm hoping to take off the carbon dosing after a week and see if my numbers stay down, the less i have going on the better for me.
Most tanks will always need a phosphate export method besides the skimmer I.e. gfo, carbon dosing, macro, algae scrubber etc. The skimmer removes dissolved organic compounds before they turn into phos and nitrate they can't remove it directly once either is in the water.
I'm assuming this, but this is what i'm looking to get at. Right now my lack of nitrates is causing the phosphates to go up, as the bacteria does not have enough nitrates on order to process the excess phosphates, i don't know the exact ratio. By adding the nitrates and creating more food for the bacteria, they will multiply and in the process consume more phosphate as well. As long as i have noticeable nitrates in the tank, the bacteria will be working to bring down the phosphates, and in the end i hope to have enough bacteria to pull this off without an additional carbon source, make sense? or am i off here?
Makes perfect sense, real world mileage may vary haha. Just test and see if it works out, you will probably always need a carbon source to have enough bacteria to make an impact.
Got plenty of testing stuff, i'll probably frag a few coral soon to try and raise some money for some upgrades though. I'll have to see how that granulated lime works out with raising the ph. P.S. my ph right now after the window has been open for 2 days is 8.08, so i know it's the co2 concentration in my house and not the ph probe.
after a day, nitrates went from 5 to 2.5, phosphates came down from 15ppm to 13 ppb, without the reactor so this seems to be working so far. The skimmer has pulled out more in two days than it usually does in two weeks. I'd imagine this will be a longer battle as the phosphates have had time to settle into the rocks and sand. I'll start dosing 1 tsp at night for nitrates and see how that does for me.
I've slowed it down since the first few days, 1 tsp will give me about 1ppm nitrate, which will be gone by the morning, if i show an increase from the day before, i'll back off. Just trying to keep the nitrates detectible is all at this point. Honestly i thought the algae would get worse with the increase i did but it's staying about the same, bryopsis even looks to be dying off a bit for whatever reason.
Just another update, the nitrate dosing is bringing the phosphate levels down, i've gone from 16ppb phosphorus to 5ppb. nitrates are sitting around 1ppm. Skimmer is pulling out more crap in 3 days than it use to in 3 weeks. I ordered that co2 removal media, it works, but judging from how fast the color is changing, i would probably be changing it every 4-5 days, and i'd get at most 2 weeks out of a 3lb bag, so works for me but not cost effective.
Well, i've made the decision to get rid of most of my sps and just go with lps and a nem or two along with other easy corals. Not that i don't love sps, but with the up and down issues in the tank along with the additional testing and all that goes with it, I just don't have the time anymore with 4 kids, 1 being 20 months and the other being a month and a half. I think i'll post some pictures up just to have them before they go. I'll hopefully have some other issues under control by next week and have some photos of the new corals as they go in.
nice good deal
