**Update**Having trouble controling my nitrates

Add chateo to your fuge, leave the existing grape caulerpa in there with it as it wont hurt anything. I actually have a double portion in mine. the other thing to add is a couple of red mangroves, you can get the seed pods from reefcleaners.org

I light the fuge with a single 26W CFL daylight bulb in a homedepot clipon reflector set on a timer to run opposite the DT lights. the flow is cut down with a ball valve to a trickle that i'm guessing is about 50 gallons an hour or about half my tank volume.

This setup has dropped my readable Nitrates from a steady 30ppm to less than 2.5ppm in about a 35 day period and then maintained this at a steady reading for the last 5 months.

good luck

 

Good info. Somewhere in the past year i read a article and thats what they said to do. i am going to get some. I dont use bio balls. I had a wet dry but got rid of it before i started the system up.

 

I may be over feeding. i need to cut back. i have 6 fish 4 hearty eaters. 1/3 of a cube. how to you devide it up? do you desolve and store in fridge.

 

Thanks, just placed my order.

 

I don't know if this will help you but what I do is defrost my cube in water and before the first meal I pour out all of the water so there is just the soft cube. I feed my 4 fish and 2 shrimp 2 times a day and a cube will last me about 3 days. I just feed a tip full, maybe 2 per feeding.

I also keep mico algae in my DT.

I do a water change every week, 5 gallons for a 40b. When I do a WC I make sure I take my baster to all of my rocks and my lightly on my sand.

My Nitrates are at 0.

 

Well it has been 5 months and trying several things to get my nitrates under control.

I am pleased to say Ive done it. This mornings water tests showed 5. This is a big change. I am used to looking at what looks like koolaid.

The last change I saw and did was my red mangroves started blooming and I added a big ball of chaeto to the fuge. I also increased the water flow through the fuge.

I also switched feeding to pelets. May have helped.

 

Congrats, keep up the good work.