Best way to reduce NO3

[hamannbmw]

Heard from someone that the effective way to reduce NO3 is by changing water daily for a week @ 30% at each time. After a week , the NO3 should be reduce to 0......

Can someone confirm this....

[roidan]

if wanna dilute faster...go for 50%....lol...more effective..but may be bad for your livestock and corals...

[pospeh]

Well, it is the best short-term and fastest solution.

You need something that works long-term without breaking your back and your wallet.

[terryansimon]

30% of water for a 4ft tank is...wah lau a lot of water!

imagine weekly! die siah.

[Volitan]

imagine the amt of salt needed.

[terryansimon]

oh yah I keep thinking freshwater. hahaha.

need to re-tune for saltwater liao! (=

[Volitan]

30% of water for a 4ft tank is...wah lau a lot of water!

imagine weekly! die siah.

excuse me, he said change 30% DAILY 4 1 wk, not weekly.

[terryansimon]

sorry lah I blur.

feeling a bit dazed now actually. sigh. :'(

[hamannbmw]

actually i get this info from someone that is very experience in marine fish keeping.....

[hamannbmw]

if wanna dilute faster...go for 50%....lol...more effective..but may be bad for your livestock and corals...

i guess 50% daily is too much for the LS to withstand....

[Volitan]

sorry lah I blur.

feeling a bit dazed now actually. sigh. :'(

Aiya, no need to sorry lah. Jus joking only. Tot it cud liven up the heat abit.

Sorry hamannbmw,

[terryansimon]

actually i get this info from someone that is very experience in marine fish keeping.....

it is entirely possible. you must remember that water changes actually do reduce nitrates.

but is it feasible in terms of finance and longevity of it? ah...thats another issue altogether.

nitrates may be at 0ppm but that is only temporarily. whereas letting your tank filtration like DSB/macroalgae do its job may be a more viable long term solution. (=

[Wei]

Hi,

30% changing water wkly can reduce a certain amt of NO3. However, from my experience, changing more than 25% of yr water from tank can affect the corals, etc. example, yr hammer or goni stop opening for a few days due to stress. I find that changing 10-20% is the most.

By changing water weekly is still not the ultimate solution to reduce NO3.

example NO3 increases by 30ppm per wk and u change 30% water weekly.

Wk 01- NO3 =30ppm change water = 21ppm

Wk 02- NO3=21+30 =51ppm change water = 35.7ppm

Wk 03- NO3=35.7+30 =65.7ppm change water = 46ppm

Wk 04- NO3=46+30 =76ppm change water = 53.2ppm

and so on....what if something died?????? Are u going to do a 100% water change & the cycle to go on again in the near future???

Starving yr system by not feeding isn't going to do any gd to yr fishes, corals or inverts either. I find it to be the worst thing to do. I rather change more water. We want to keep healthy fishes, unless the theme for yr tank is "AFRICA". Malnutrition fishes swimming ard.

The best way is still to have those bacteria to break them dwn. Let the bacteria established somewhere within yr system.

It can be DSB, denitrator or chemically.

Wei

[hamannbmw]

TY wei..

[anakjoh]

I agree with Wei - changing water only temporarily remove excessive nitrates but not addressing the cause of nitrates buildup. Why not use a refugium, it is a effective nitrate export function.

[mAriNe_enthusiast]

Dsb will take quite a while to mature...then meanwhile, the nitrate will always be a pro.

I think refugium will really help.

For those using refugium, may i ask what's the avg nitrate level in your tank?

[hsloo]

Without DSB and refugium, i always have a hard job to change water once a week to reduce the nitrate level <50ppm, but nitrate level increased quite fast after 2 or 3 days. After that, decided to do major change on the sump to have a DSB and refugium, now the nitrate level can maintain around 50ppm and keep reducing now.... Suggest those reefer with nitrate problem to try this. Do once to solve all.

[chrislwp]

My NO3 use to shoot from 50 to 100 in just a week or 2 eventhough I have a refugium with macroalgae.

Finally after some advise, I removed all the bioball, left only the bioRing, and put LR into the sump.

Now the NO3 is stable at 25ppm after couple of water change. I believe another 50% water change will bring down to 12ppm already.