Nitrate Help

I recently had a bryopsis outbreak which is now cured. I have a 46 gallon and had 60 lbs of LR. I boiled about 15 lbs of it. I had 0 nitrates for a long time. I added phosban to help get rid of the bryopsis. I now have nitrates between 5-10. My chaeto will not grow in my in-tank refugium. It is just thinning out and getting brownish. Maybe because of no phosphates now. Today I added 5 lbs of new cured LR. I was going to add another 10 lbs within the next 2 weeks. I just want to nitrates back down to 0. Do you think some massive water changes now might help? I have LPS, SPS, Softies, and mishrooms and 2 oscellaris, 1 wrasse and 1 mandarin. ph is 7.8 - 8.1 alk - 9, SG 1.025 temp is 78.

 

i believe 5-10 nitrates is fine

 

If your cheato is dying, I would get it out asap. 5-10ppm of No3 is more than fine. I have 20ppm for the longest and everything has been fine. Luna

 

Ditto.
I've been between 10-20ppm for a year now. nothing suffers

 

Hey bro relax. Nitrates aren't the killer once thought IMO. I think the bigger problem is phos. 5-10 ppm on the nitrates side is more than fine. If you can't keep chaeto in your tank you need to remove it asap because letting it disolve in your tank will just raise phos levels in turn adding to your nitrates. IMO the fact that you can't keep chaeto now is a good thing and I would keep doin what I was doin if I were you.

 

mine normall are at like 20, but i have had a spike for a moth now at 75, and i just finally got it back down, but everything was o.k. ish

 

Nitrates are not now and have never been a killer situation at less then a 100ppm they are just a good nutrient source of alga's.. Thats the killer 0 is where I keep mine and I'd suggest that anyone with LPS and SPS corals shoot for also ..

And 20 is far from normal Nemo and when its all done you will be at 0 and also for what ever its worth , for those who think that after a given set time and they have NO3 at 15 for a yr or two they will only keep slowly building up as the systems keep taking food in and putting waste out. Its the rules water changes will help a little but along with diluting the NO3 with a water change you are also diluting some of the needed natural reducers ..

 

Nitrates

I realize that what gave me some nitrates was rearranging some live rock and stirring up a little sand. I don't think reducing my LR from 60lbs to 45 did it. You dont want to mes with the sandbed and the denitrifying bacteria. It starts a little cycle. I am going to do a few bigger eater changes to correct it and then just wait till it gets back to 0.
Adam

 

I am currently at 80 ppm and working to bring it down. Nothing in the system is suffering at all.

 

Why do you guys not just set up a nitrate coil or buy a reactor and some nitrate adsorbing media out the denitraters that use sulfur and be done with the problem ? Look nitrates will never go away they are a 24/7 365 occurring condition and they will always be in the systems and always increasing as the system age's . You can lull yourself into thinking a limited amount are O.K but they are never needed or wanted by any systemj I ever ran . If mine hit 1ppm I'd be looking for the cause .