Just talked to one of the staff members at BRS about an order I placed. They were very helpfull and made things really easy for me :). I have finally took a leap into the saltwater reef tank community. I believe that if it were not for BRS I would probably have never started this new and exciting journey. I cant wait to get my tank and supplies I ordered from them :). Thanks again BRS team you truly are the best :).
Thanks for your explanation of the "Redfield Ratio". I've heard it mentioned many times and just didn't quite understand it. Somehow I knew you would be getting into it when you started talking about the ratio of Nitrate to Phosphorous. I'll do a bit more research into the subject now that I have an idiots understanding of the basic concept. Kudos BRS team.
I love your videos. So much good and helpful information in them. I can tell you put a lot of effort and research into them. Thank you so much for all the help past, present, and future. I love doing business with you guys too, always fast shipments, and great products.
Well BRS, I'm glad you're finally explaining the Redfield Ratio to describe nutrient imbalance and management. Thank you! I had to spend a week or two trying to research on this topic and when I finally understood this some people thought I was nuts in thinking I needed more Phosphates for my tank!
yes! please do a brs investigates on nitrate test kits. my experience is they never match each other and the differences are usually dramatic. I had one test around 40, do another test with the same water and it's 10. I'd super curious which brand (s) of kits are accurate.
omg this is happening to me rn I just started up a tank about 2 months ago a 20 gallon nuvo fusion. The phosphate levels are at .17 ppm for phosphate and nitrates are over 4 ppm. I am doing the red sea reef program and i have finished it now :(. What can i do to get the nitrates down? I have no fish or livestock in the tank still because I am waiting for the nitrates to drop before I add anything to the tank. Any advice helps thx :).
Just like others, no refuge on my new build tried out NoPox, killed my nitrates but phosphates rose when I removed my gfo because it said no phosphate media, now diatoms started, back to gfo and nopox!!
The most common cause (in my opinion) is due to Purigen. Purigen does an excellent job at removing nitrates and ammonia but doesn't even touch phosphate. It took me 3 months to realized that Purigen has to be used with phosguard or it will create an imbalance.
I am dosing NoPox from RedSea, my Nitrates were brought down from 80ppm to undetectable in 12 days. Algae has begun to disappear and some coral are starting to grow again. I can't test phosphates at the moment, but how much slower do Phosphates get reduced than Nitrates with NoPox?
Awesome topic BRS crew great work... Trendy BB tanks tend to have minimal anaerobic zones which leads to poor nitrate to nitrogen export abilities. Adding dark rubble zones, refugiums, or even ULTRA HIGH surface area media seems to help this issue in the absence of a sand bed for more balanced denitrification. If you use GFO, the key is having some anaerobic zones somewhere I think. Its only natural right?
Always ahead of the rest!!! I would love to see the comparison between the test kits. I am currently in the market for these. Thanks for all the hard work BRS!!!
So I have been using chemipure elite in my sock and marine pure balls for nitrates. I have a crazy imbalance now that I added to many corals at once and feeding them reef roids. My nitrates shot up to 60 and my phosphates are between zero and 0.25. I actually have a lot more frags coming since I won them and need to get nirtaes down I was going to use nopox but I hheard that will phosphates too so what do I do? Does vodka lower phophates? I can remove the bag of chemipure, but likely take w while to build up and I need them lowered aap. i am not going to feed the corals anymore, until this is corrected. My alk drop from 8.5 or something down to 6 something as well. Do I add soda ash to up it and keep it up with kalkwasser? I just hooked up my skimmer, will this help with either? Did you say zeolite only does nitrates? What about media called denitrate by seachem andI also know of lots of people using chemipure elite, purigan, poly bio pads and filter flow in skimmerless nano's and thats what i have been doing in my 10 gallon and my phophates are 10 at the higest and thats the day before weekly water change. Dont know why this method hasnt worked well in my 36 gallon and marine pure sucks!
The analysis of nitrate tests would be awesome. I am color blind which makes it worse. I have done some repeatability tests and I am not that impressed with my results. I am a ChE with years of lab experience. Just can't find a kit that reminds me of lab quality results.
does this apply to freshwater tanks as well? if I test for phosphates will that means low nitrates? sounds like thats a no in the reefing world but I've never had a saltwater tank to compare to. And I wonder if thats why using you're GFO that you showed in the video explains why my nitrates are so high like off the charts on 2 diff tests and thats after cleaning the canister, taking out all the sand and leaving only gravel along with about a 75% water change of the past week and the nitrates are still skyrocket high. I only used like half a cup of the GFO because I wasn't sure how much was going to be needed the first time. I also haven't feed much at all over the past week. I'm just having trouble getting these nitrates under control and all the rest is spot on. Thx to anyone that can answer or help out ! thank you
Awsome video. Kalkwasser was my issue so I switched 2 weeks ago to your 2 part. Now my issue is my calcium stays at around 420 but my alkalinity drops every other day from 9 to 7. I have checked my levels but it has been this way for 2 weeks. What could cause this?
I once had a failed steel tube heater that was leaking current into the tank, and likely other things. My nitrates would skyrocket out of nowhere. Like do a 100% water change and have nitrates of 0 one day, check the next day and have nitrates of 50 with two different test kits. This was after years of no nitrate or phosphate problems. Took me weeks to figure out what the problem was. I never did figure out the mechanism of the heater-nitrate problem. But I removed the heater, and nitrates stopped rising.
Not unless my hand got really close to it in the larger system (~110 gal total volume), or I put my hand in water of a smaller tank with the heater in it (~20 gallon). I would get the light "buzzing" feeling on scrapes or small cuts similar to when other things leak current.
I use Kalk and have a small amount of caulerpa in my sump and i have almost undetectable nitrate (2-5ppm) yet without using GFO my PO4 climbs. I tested by taking the GFO out and using the Hanna ULR it went from .04 to .2 in roughly 40 days but the nitrate stayed at 2-5ppm Think my caulerpa is good at using NO3 but not so good a using PO4
BulkReefSupplyCom I have the same issue. My Cheato is huge and running a H380 I bought from you. Nitrate is not detectable (using redsea) but phosphate is .01 to .1 depending on the day. Are you showing similar results in the initial FOWLR tank Cheato testing? My tank is upside down on these two components... I feed LRS
Definitely would like to see the standards testing on the hanna checkers. I have the phos, calcium and alk testers but recent events have thrown a shadow over whether the results are accurate on my testers comparing them to a number of test kits which get similar readings to each other but are way off what the hanna checkers say.
would be very interesting. I have trust the checkers mind but after comparing test results with salifert and red sea the checkers were a totally different result where the salifert and red sea came close to each other.
None of them are worth trusting for accuracy. Better to use the same kit over and over and just know if its going up or down. Watch your corald to know if its too high or too low
Unrelated to this video, what is the difference between carbon dosing and wanting to remove carbon from your system with those new reactors I see around? Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of carbon dosing?
***** Thanks. On liveaquaria, they look less bright and not nearly as fluorescent as the ones at 0:23. Is this normal? And additionally, when will BRS start selling livestock??
i need help...mine are both zero... 0 nitrate 0 phosphate... and my zoas are not open as much ..most half way closed...all other parameters are good...thoughts????
I have a bio cube 29 and added de nitrate ceramic pellets. How often do you recommend me changing the water? Might consider on doing a 50% change and hope nothing happens to my coral and fish
Awesome, love the videos keep up the good work! btw I noticed your hanna checkers lids are never fully closed when you show testing with them, does this not affect the result? Thanks.
I already have a marine pure block in my 75g system, along with a fuge and a biopellet reactor (feeding into my skimmer). And i still have issues. This hobby can drive people mad.
I had this similar problem a few years ago. Running less GFO and lowering my alk from 9.5 to 8.3 is what fixed mine. Don't know your tank but I hope may open a door to a solution maybe.
He says using kalkwasser takes out phosphates it has not been proven!!!!!! but many in the hobby believe it's true but it has not been proven this doesn't make no sense so that's like saying using kalkwasser is a bad thing
