mardi 28 avril 2015

Nitrates in SPS tank

Hey everyone,

I've been having issues with my sps corals for the past 6 months or so, and just wondering if nitrates are the issue.... I finally figured out how to do a high range test of my tank and the nitrates come in at 16ppm.

I know this is high, but several of my sps corals have completely died over the course of the past 6 months, basically since I introduced a few more fish that put me over the stocking limit for my tank (apparently). Other corals have turned brown or completely lost color, others have burnt tips or receding tissue underneath the coral where there is no light.

I have soft corals too, and thought that maybe terpenes and other allelopathic compounds were polluting my system, but I've been diligent about water changes and use lots of mechanical and chemical filtration, and my UV should be denaturing these compounds to let the skimmer pull them out.

So are nitrates the problem here?

I started dosing vodka about 2 months ago, am up to 7.5 ml per day but still no reduction in nitrates... this will bring nitrates down when I get to the critical level of dosing, I think around 15ml for my size system will do it, but need to build up slowly. Increasing the amount by .5ml every 5 days rather than every 7 days because my system is big and should be less sensitive to increases than smaller systems, right?


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