scratching my head

im having a couple problems with my water , and trying to sort them out. last water test i did my phosphates registered .05 , first time for that. my nitrates were 5. and my dkh was 9. did a test last night my phos was 0. but my nitrates climbed to about 15. and dkh was only 8. this was after a water change the night before. other params, temp 78 , calcium 460 and salinity 1.024. ph is 8.4

i have cut down on my feedings as i was told i should. so good i got my phos to drop. but my nitrates rose. i run a phosban reactor and carbon. feed my fish 2x a day , small amount of flake a pellets.

so just looking for advice on how to drop the nitrates and raise my dkh. im asking because after cutting back feedings , while good my phos dropped , my nitrates went up. and not sure best way to raise dkh. thnx in advance

 

gonna bump this myself. can i do that?lol

 

Hi Divott

Do you have a fuge area in your sump? with macro algae in it? as that would/ should help with the Nitrate issue

feeding twice a day is not cutting back as much as people would be advising you
I feed once per day, 6 days a week and have one day without putting food in (for fish)

I do use Microvert for my corals - but I feed once a week and 1/3 of the stated dose

I dont have a sump/ fuge. Purigen I recently added it to my system even though my trates never went above 10ppm (I have no algae issue so I reckon it was OK) the Purigen has zero'd out my trates within 2 weeks

DKH - I currently have 15 degrees - but maintain that using an Azoo brand liquid additive called KH up - not sure on any other methods as I am a "use bottled additives for convenience" type of person

Steve

 

thnx steve. guess i will just cut back to once a day then. and im going to my lfs tomorrow night for some pods, so i will look for that kh up

 

Welcome Divott, there will be plenty of other ways to raise KH , most of them more sceintific then my method , hopefully someone will chime in with a better solution

and at the end of the day, if your tank looks great and your inhabitants look well, then the numbers are not critical IME

Steve

 

me and science never got along. lol. teacher gave me days off when using bunson burners. lol.

 

do you dose to keep params stable or just rely on W/C's?

What fish do you have?

I have 2 clowns, 1 wrasse and a blenny. I feed once every 2-3 days a small amount. My fish are fat and healthy.

 

i dose calcium and mag. and i just found some for dkh. but i will cut back on the buffet for the boys tho. ive got 2 percs , flame, coral, foxface, purple tang, cqrpenter wrasse and red scooter blenny

 

as you raise cal your alk will drop, so for every 20ppm you raise cal your dkh will drop one.
there are a few ways to raise dkh, baking soda, soda ash or a additive bought from your LFS.

 

I feed frozen food twice a week and 1/4 sheet of sea veggies every day. If you cut back to twice a day how much were you feeding. Your fish sure have you well trained.

I see you have a sump? Do you have bio-balls? The Phos-Ban is more than likely what lowered your phosphates.

Nitrates are the end result of the nitrogen cycle and you have to have a way to remove them. Anaerobic bacteria can convert nitrates into nitrogen gas if you have a de-nitrator on the tank. Another way to do it is to use a porous substance in place of bio-balls in a bio-tower. For a customer, whose nitrates were 200 and they just wouldn't drop, we took out all of her bio-balls and replaced it with Matrix (which is a natural porous substance) and within 2 weeks her nitrates were zero. You can do water changes, but that is simply dilution and the nitrates will climb back up.

I build de-nitrators with phosban reactors and de-nitrate. You fill the phosban reactor with de-nitrate with a slow flow and leave it alone forever as long as it doesn't clog up. Others use coil denitrators and some dose Vodka.

As far as your KH, get a good buffer. Kent makes one called Super Buffer dKH that every Petco has, Seachem makes a reef buffer, and there are liquids as well eight.four is my favorite it's in the Aqua Vitro line. If chemistry isn't your thing, get a Buffer and don't use baking soda.