what ways of lowering nitrate
- Thread starter Richard203
- Start date
Hello; There are plants that do not have to be rooted in a substrate. They just float around in the tank. With the level of nitrates they should grow well and should help reduce them.
Maybe neither. Quite a few threads in the filtration section on the subject. Me personally i wouldnt spend the money if anything try a diy version.
markstrimaran
has a thread going now.To op ive messed with different methods and so far the most reliable for me has been purigen
I have purigen right now but they are expensive to replace after a few use, I know u can reuse them but each them u reuse them they get worse.
1.5 cups of shrimp =
12 ounces of shrimp =
340 grams of shrimp =
119 grams of food, dry weight (35%) =
100 grams of protein (84%) =
16 grams of nitrogen =
13,122 mg ammonia =
47,771 mg nitrate
In a 681 liter (180 gallon) tank, yields 47771/681 = 70 ppm nitrate every day which is around 7x what your WC schedule and nitrate readings suggest (assuming you are doing huge changes.)
Also, based on your post, I calculated around 6.4 lbs of fish in the tank. So that works out to .68 lbs food/6.4 lbs fish per day, or 11% of net body weight, which is around 4-5x what they should be getting in food per day.
It's like both numbers are off by 5-7x. Maybe you meant per week not per day. That would make more mathematical sense.
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is it the smaller the cover the faster u need to remove the algea? if I want to clean it once every month should I get the bigger cover?
The algea scrubbers, Santa Monica sells are high quality units.
I use DIY scrubber myself but I have tested some of the Gem lights. The 660nm red led, is the algea scrubber standard.
Without a sump, your going to have green water, perhaps. When you change your scrubber.
My 100 micron 4 stage mechanical filter, gets washed, 2 times a week. I do a 55 gallon WC on a 130 gallon system.
My bio filter is a wet dry bio balls, oceanic model 75. The algea scrubber is 8"×14" single sided waterfall. Powered with twenty, 660nm 3watt leds, about 60 watts.
Inside the tank, I use two 60 watt led saltwater reef lights, and one 160 watt saltwater reef light.
So I am pushing at least 120 watts of 425 nm thru 660nm growing specturm..
My African ciclids eat algae, so this is my motivation, as they are very agressive, and don't fight very much if theirs something to eat.
The entire tank is covered in algea. The red leds on the scrubber grows more of the unwanted algea types. The tank grows more advanced algea. My nitrates are always around 17ppm, with 10ppm nitrates in the tap water.
I dose iron, phosphate, sulphate, to help the plants burn nitrate. When I feel the need.. This is the lower 75g. It is a fresh water Reef.
My top tank, is a 75g stacked on top of it.
It was purpose built, with chamber for a up flow scrubber. It has no algea growing in the display. It is lightly stocked, but nitrates creep up over several months to 40ppm. It uses an overhead filter floss tray, that gets cleaned about once a month. It was on a 5 led, 15watt, it grows a very lush screen, that is very thick.
I have no deep substrate, I have an permanent air lift, in step with a full length return flowing at 6 times, my tanks volume.
The way I think about it is you can never have too much led power, or scrubber screens. Even better is the heat trade off, if you use a 300 watt heater, a 300 watt led light will do double duty.
I use DIY scrubber myself but I have tested some of the Gem lights. The 660nm red led, is the algea scrubber standard.
Without a sump, your going to have green water, perhaps. When you change your scrubber.
My 100 micron 4 stage mechanical filter, gets washed, 2 times a week. I do a 55 gallon WC on a 130 gallon system.
My bio filter is a wet dry bio balls, oceanic model 75. The algea scrubber is 8"×14" single sided waterfall. Powered with twenty, 660nm 3watt leds, about 60 watts.
Inside the tank, I use two 60 watt led saltwater reef lights, and one 160 watt saltwater reef light.
So I am pushing at least 120 watts of 425 nm thru 660nm growing specturm..
My African ciclids eat algae, so this is my motivation, as they are very agressive, and don't fight very much if theirs something to eat.
The entire tank is covered in algea. The red leds on the scrubber grows more of the unwanted algea types. The tank grows more advanced algea. My nitrates are always around 17ppm, with 10ppm nitrates in the tap water.
I dose iron, phosphate, sulphate, to help the plants burn nitrate. When I feel the need.. This is the lower 75g. It is a fresh water Reef.
My top tank, is a 75g stacked on top of it.
It was purpose built, with chamber for a up flow scrubber. It has no algea growing in the display. It is lightly stocked, but nitrates creep up over several months to 40ppm. It uses an overhead filter floss tray, that gets cleaned about once a month. It was on a 5 led, 15watt, it grows a very lush screen, that is very thick.
I have no deep substrate, I have an permanent air lift, in step with a full length return flowing at 6 times, my tanks volume.
The way I think about it is you can never have too much led power, or scrubber screens. Even better is the heat trade off, if you use a 300 watt heater, a 300 watt led light will do double duty.
up water changes amount. number 1 way to control nitrate is water changes, nothing wrong with a fin level/90% water changes. Plants are not going to do any noticeable def. going easy on the proteins well help more, but the bottom line water changes. if can control at a fin level 90% once a week great, its what i do to the tune of 350 gallons a week, if not will need to do more than one a week.
