My 1.5 ft Reef log

[jackywongto]

Actually no leh...Bioptm is every 15 days for up to 1,000L, Biodigest can be used weekly for up to 1,000L if nitrates are high.

yeah if "aquarium is very dirty" - quoted from Prodibio.

I think on the avg, 15 days should be ok. My guess.

[jackywongto]

Faster test lah...then can start using liao...

Now I'm wondering if using AZ NO3 with Bio Clean is really a good way to reduce nitrates...

BioClean by itself should do the work already.

[teebs]

yeah if "aquarium is very dirty" - quoted from Prodibio.

I think on the avg, 15 days should be ok. My guess.

Changed ard 100L of water today and dosed another vial of biodigest and bioptm. I think next time I dose reef booster better dose it at night...

[jackywongto]

Changed ard 100L of water today and dosed another vial of biodigest and bioptm. I think next time I dose reef booster better dose it at night...

100L lol = my tank water capacity... haha.....

This is 1 week since your 1st dosage right?

[teebs]

BioClean by itself should do the work already.

But I think Bioclean needs a pretty long time to build up the bacteria count to be effective in removing nitrates. AZ NO3 removes nitrates immediately but right now, it seems that bioclean has converted a lot of the waste products in my tank to nitrates...

[teebs]

100L lol = my tank water capacity... haha.....

This is 1 week since your 1st dosage right?

About 1 week lor. Think I dosed reef booster last wed and bio clean last thurs. But now when i add AZ NO3 to my tank, whole tank still turns cloudy for 4 hours. Will monitor for the next couple of days to see what happens when I dose AZ NO3 and also whether my skimmer will continue skimming so much shit from my tank.

[comycus]

I just got my biodigest today. cool little vials.

Bought a bottle of vodka to try vodka testing coz I thought I have been overfeeding and nitrates should have been slowly increasing.

Tested my water parameters... fainted. nitrates <2.5ppm, rest zero. Think the moral of the story is keep bio load low, have a good skimmer and have good husbandry. Of course, having the rest of the stuff are good to have

[jackywongto]

But I think Bioclean needs a pretty long time to build up the bacteria count to be effective in removing nitrates. AZ NO3 removes nitrates immediately but right now, it seems that bioclean has converted a lot of the waste products in my tank to nitrates...

speculation or you tested?

BioDigest should have the various strains to convert nitrate to nitrogen. My guesswork again.

That's why I want to test before I dose. The best is if I can get hold of a nitrate monitor for 1 month

Anyone has one to loan?

[teebs]

I just got my biodigest today. cool little vials.

Bought a bottle of vodka to try vodka testing coz I thought I have been overfeeding and nitrates should have been slowly increasing.

Tested my water parameters... fainted. nitrates <2.5ppm, rest zero. Think the moral of the story is keep bio load low, have a good skimmer and have good husbandry. Of course, having the rest of the stuff are good to have

Seems like you don't need biodigest at all...

[jackywongto]

About 1 week lor. Think I dosed reef booster last wed and bio clean last thurs. But now when i add AZ NO3 to my tank, whole tank still turns cloudy for 4 hours. Will monitor for the next couple of days to see what happens when I dose AZ NO3 and also whether my skimmer will continue skimming so much shit from my tank.

Can there be some kind of chemical reactions between the 2 ?

I am going to stop using Kent Marine Trace Element when I dose Biotim.

want to see if I can notice any difference in the tank.

[comycus]

Seems like you don't need biodigest at all...

yeah... i had tt thought for like half a min.

Then my good friend reminded me tt dosing of bacteria after water changes help to maintain the bacteria colony. So lol

[jackywongto]

I just got my biodigest today. cool little vials.

Bought a bottle of vodka to try vodka testing coz I thought I have been overfeeding and nitrates should have been slowly increasing.

Tested my water parameters... fainted. nitrates <2.5ppm, rest zero. Think the moral of the story is keep bio load low, have a good skimmer and have good husbandry. Of course, having the rest of the stuff are good to have

nice bro!

[teebs]

speculation or you tested?

BioDigest should have the various strains to convert nitrate to nitrogen. My guesswork again.

That's why I want to test before I dose. The best is if I can get hold of a nitrate monitor for 1 month

Anyone has one to loan?

I'm basically testing the nitrates daily now... Before using bio clean and using AZ No3 only, normally tank will turn only slightly cloudy when AZ NO3 is dosed and nitrates is ard 10-25ppm.

Right now, after dosing AZ No3, tank turns cloudy for ard 4 hours. After tank clears and when i measure the nitrates, nitrates is ard 10ppm. The test solution colour also changed from light orange to dark yellow now.

Anyway, tonight I dosed AZ No3 so tomorrow morning will test nitrates again. No feeding tonight so will see what the nitrate level is in the morning and afternoon after I dose AZ No3 again.

[jackywongto]

BioClean can last me about 7 months based on 15 days dosage.

If it assist me in maintaining an algae free tank and clean water condition for the fishes, I really dun mind investing 2 box every year.

[teebs]

Can there be some kind of chemical reactions between the 2 ?

I am going to stop using Kent Marine Trace Element when I dose Biotim.

want to see if I can notice any difference in the tank.

Between AZ NO3 and bio clean? Shouldn't be because AZ NO3 only reacts with the nitrate molecules and binds them. The skimmer will then skim away the nitrates.

Bio Clean is just trace elements and bacteria strains so my guess is that the waste matter in my tank has been converted to nitrates and when I use AZ NO3, it binds the nitrate molecules, thus resulting in my tank becoming super cloudy and my skimmer skims away all the nitrates and this results in the huge amount of skim mate in the collection cup.

[jackywongto]

Between AZ NO3 and bio clean? Shouldn't be because AZ NO3 only reacts with the nitrate molecules and binds them. The skimmer will then skim away the nitrates.

Bio Clean is just trace elements and bacteria strains so my guess is that the waste matter in my tank has been converted to nitrates and when I use AZ NO3, it binds the nitrate molecules, thus resulting in my tank becoming super cloudy and my skimmer skims away all the nitrates and this results in the huge amount of skim mate in the collection cup.

Arh ok. So you are thinking that because of the biodigest, more waste are converted to nitrates faster and hence when you add AZ No3, it becomes more cloudy. Well guess it will tell when 1 month + later cause by then, it should be less cloudy right since the BioDigest shld be more effective in converting to nitrogen already.

[teebs]

Arh ok. So you are thinking that because of the biodigest, more waste are converted to nitrates faster and hence when you add AZ No3, it becomes more cloudy. Well guess it will tell when 1 month + later cause by then, it should be less cloudy right since the BioDigest shld be more effective in converting to nitrogen already.

Yup, that is what I think.

Anyway, measured my nitrates this morning, reading is less than 10ppm. Dosed AZ NO3 again and tank is much less cloudy than yesterday. Maybe because I didn't feed last night, not so much nitrates left in the tank for AZ NO3 to remove? Anyway, will do a test again after tank clears and also compare the colour of the two tests.

If my understanding is correct, my nitrate reading should drop further and the colour of the second test should be lighter than the first one. May need to get a test kit that can measure low level nitrates.

[MarcoVan]

Yup, that is what I think.

Anyway, measured my nitrates this morning, reading is less than 10ppm. Dosed AZ NO3 again and tank is much less cloudy than yesterday. Maybe because I didn't feed last night, not so much nitrates left in the tank for AZ NO3 to remove? Anyway, will do a test again after tank clears and also compare the colour of the two tests.

If my understanding is correct, my nitrate reading should drop further and the colour of the second test should be lighter than the first one. May need to get a test kit that can measure low level nitrates.

Bro,

try not to go too low for your nitrates eh! You are keeping a LPS/Softies tank so they kinda need some amount of nutrients as food. If you cannot providde that, expect your lps/softies to bleach when you forget to target feed them or something.

I see this happening in SPS tanks which are running on carbon-based dosing. Most guys managed to pull the nitrates and phosphates down to minimal and guess what, their LPSes cannot thrive well inside; so do the zoas.

So try to aim for the balance and not the ultimate extreme k! Unless your plans are going towards SPS, I suggest you to be conservative on the dosing of such products. no doubt they are efficient, but what is our ultimate goal we want to achieve for our tanks currently is top most issue (:

Just my 2 cents

Happy Reefing,

Marc J.

[teebs]

Bro,

try not to go too low for your nitrates eh! You are keeping a LPS/Softies tank so they kinda need some amount of nutrients as food. If you cannot providde that, expect your lps/softies to bleach when you forget to target feed them or something.

I see this happening in SPS tanks which are running on carbon-based dosing. Most guys managed to pull the nitrates and phosphates down to minimal and guess what, their LPSes cannot thrive well inside; so do the zoas.

So try to aim for the balance and not the ultimate extreme k! Unless your plans are going towards SPS, I suggest you to be conservative on the dosing of such products. no doubt they are efficient, but what is our ultimate goal we want to achieve for our tanks currently is top most issue (:

Just my 2 cents

Happy Reefing,

Marc J.

I'm not about to go to the extremes on the NO3 removal...

What I'm trying to find out now is just how much nitrates can be removed if I use Bio Clean only, AZ NO3 only and a combination of both. From my experience so far, without using any of these, my nitrates will go from <10ppm to 50-100 ppm within 2 weeks. Using AZ No3, I can usually maintain my nitrates between 10-25ppm when i flood or target feed my tank the previous night or <10ppm if I do not feed my corals.

Using combination of bio clean and AZ NO3, I can see that my skimmer basically skims out a lot more than normal and with feeding, my nitrates still maintain at <10ppm.

Last night, I dosed AZ NO3 and this morning I measured the nitrates and the colour of the test regent is on the left. I then dosed AZ NO3 again and 4 hours later I tested for nitrates again. The colour of the 2nd test regent is on the right. From this test, it is obvious that AZ NO3 is effective in removing nitrates from the system. Nitrates has not reached 0ppm yet as 0ppm is very light yellow.

[TayHongSiang]

whatz the ultimate aim of yr "project" ? preparing for SPS?!

[teebs]

whatz the ultimate aim of yr "project" ? preparing for SPS?!

Nope, won't be going for SPS...

Ultimate aim is to see how I can maintain low nitrates and phosphates level and thus reduce the frequency of water changes.

Used to change 50% of water every 2 weeks, now changing 25% every month. If can maintain nitrates at <10ppm consistently even with heavy feedings, then I may change 50% water every 2 months.

Target for me is to maintain nitrates between 5-10ppm which I believe is the ideal for LPS and softies. For me the problem is that I use NSW for water changes and whenever I do that, my water parameters change quite a bit. NSW from Iwarna has ard 350ppm of calcium, 1100ppm of magnesium, salinity of 1.02.

[TayHongSiang]

Nope, won't be going for SPS...

Ultimate aim is to see how I can maintain low nitrates and phosphates level and thus reduce the frequency of water changes.

Used to change 50% of water every 2 weeks, now changing 25% every month. If can maintain nitrates at <10ppm consistently even with heavy feedings, then I may change 50% water every 2 months.

Target for me is to maintain nitrates between 5-10ppm which I believe is the ideal for LPS and softies. For me the problem is that I use NSW for water changes and whenever I do that, my water parameters change quite a bit. NSW from Iwarna has ard 350ppm of calcium, 1100ppm of magnesium, salinity of 1.02.

wow...i wish i can do that...just too lazy to measure and keep track...n dun even know watz my nitrate level...haha...

currently, i m changing 10% every 3 days using life/ntuc water.

[MarcoVan]

currently, i m changing 10% every 3 days using life/ntuc water.

every 3 days?! OMG! You're DA Man! :D

I'm too old for this kind of things! hahaha

Happy Reefing,

Marc J.

[TayHongSiang]

every 3 days?! OMG! You're DA Man! :D

I'm too old for this kind of things! hahaha

Happy Reefing,

Marc J.

hahaha...that's becoz mine is just a 2ft tank running w/o skimmer.

[jackywongto]

hahaha...that's becoz mine is just a 2ft tank running w/o skimmer.

wow every 3 days.... mine is every 3 weeks now