nitrate reductor

[marrone]

First get a new kit and find out what your nitrates are then you came determine if you need to do something, as you may not have a problem. By either getting rid of the Eheim filter or using it to run carbon and cleaning it out alot you shouldn't have a problem. You do have a skimmer, which is fine no need to change it, and the corals that you have are softies which should be fine with the setup you have.

But first re-test and come up with your correct level of nitrates.

 

[Noodus]

re tested nitrates read about 25 ppm. which is okay, but i would like it lower.

 

[marrone]

That fine for a fish tank but for a reef tank you want it below 10 or low if possible, since you have softies you can have it higher than if you have sps.

What do you do water changes and how much do you change each time? You may need to do larger water changes or more. Also do you have a sump and what is in it? Also what Nitrate kit are you using?

 

[NYPDFrogman]

how bout two skimmers? is that better than one, i lack the space to get a bigger one. and is there any wrong with a nitrate reductor? also what would a ozone reactor do?

heres the deal....
one way of measuring water quality is determined by measuring your redox potential ( ability to handle pollutants) it's measured in millivolts.

a way of raising your redox potential is to introduce Ozone into the water. you cant just pump it into the tank there fore there are 2 accepted ways of doing so.
1 through a protien skimmer ( not reccomended)
2 an Ozone reactor ( I prefer)

water is pumped into a canister filled with bio balls or some other media to break up the water into drops. the canister is under pressure (few PSI) by an air pump.
ozone is introduced into the air flow controlled by a redox controller it reacts with the water in the reactor raising the redox potential.
the out flow of the reactor must pass through carbon to remove excess ozone before entering the tank or sump water.

you must. must use a redox meter if you are using ozone and depending on your tank and bio load and present redox reading you must raise it slowly over a long period other wise you can crash the tank

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/redox.htm

 

[Noodus]

using a kit by aquarium pharmaceuticals. i do water changes every like 10 days. i do about 10 gal changes

 

[Noodus]

thanks everyone for your help. frogman where is a good place to get one of those ozone reactor with redox meter?

 

[marrone]

You probably want to do a larger water change, about 20gal, as you have alot of bio-load in the tank and with feeding of the fish it's caused you nitrates to go up. See if that helps keep the nitrates down. Also clean out the eheim or get rid of it.

Right now you need to get the nitrates down so do a couple of water changes, about 20 gal each, over the next couple of days.

Also get a different kit like the Salifert or Fastest. they'll give you better results.

 

[NYPDFrogman]

thanks everyone for your help. frogman where is a good place to get one of those ozone reactor with redox meter?

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