Cali Kid Corals

High Nitrate and phosphate

After 11 weeks of running Dr.tim biopellet. here is my update:
I notice my nitrate is go down from 36 to around 16ppm using Redsea Test kit, but Phosphate go up from 0.08 to .45 and Im having brown cyano algae on the sand bed. I did water change three time in the last 11 weeks each time with 30% (around 40 gal), I also vacuum those algae every water change. During this time, I dose Microbacter7 for five day to seed the process.

Since it help to reduce the Nitrate, Im thinking of back the GFO and carbon. By the way, I upgrade my skimmer from SRO-2000int to SRO-3000Int and it pull out a lot of nasty stuff.

What should I do next? Any suggestion?
Vacuum out the Cyano, and run GFO!
You mention that, so you seem to be on the right track. It just takes time.
 
I was using BRS bio-pellets when I started to set up my reactor and had well...piss poor results until a friend of mine told me about using Warner Marine ecoBAK plus pellets + using Mircrobactor7 and it dropped everything in less than a month and as of my last test NO3=0.025 & PO4=0.02

But that is what worked for me and I am going to be selling my GFO/Carbon Reactor due the the great results I have been getting for over the last 4months now....but every tank is different, you just need to find what work for your tank.
 
I have the same Bio-pellet reactor, but am running Eco-Bak Plus pellets and started off with 1000mL and am up to 1500mL and I running it & my BRS carbon reactor off a Sicce 3 pump
 
I just look and you are doing fine in my opinion regarding the Redfied Ratio:

your NO3=4
your PO4=.45
your gal 120 = 454 L

Here is a copy translated from German to English with your results...

The ratio of nitrogen / phosphorus is OK, what relationship is not a real adjustments are required

To obtain optimum balance, you can add 10:43 mg / l Potassium nitrate. In this tank is that in total 4.73 grams Potassium Nitrate

Capture.PNG
 
I understand that the physical numbers are high, but the ratio is good...so if you try to lower your PO4 & NO3 you are going to want to get them rebalanced, but I wouldn't be chasing those lower numbers unless your corals are telling you other wise!!!!
 
I was using BRS bio-pellets when I started to set up my reactor and had well...piss poor results until a friend of mine told me about using Warner Marine ecoBAK plus pellets + using Mircrobactor7 and it dropped everything in less than a month and as of my last test NO3=0.025 & PO4=0.02

But that is what worked for me and I am going to be selling my GFO/Carbon Reactor due the the great results I have been getting for over the last 4months now....but every tank is different, you just need to find what work for your tank.

when you switch to Warner Marine ecoBAK plus pellet, is the process biopellet start over again or it continue? if it start over again, how long will it take to get effect?
 
when you switch to Warner Marine ecoBAK plus pellet, is the process biopellet start over again or it continue? if it start over again, how long will it take to get effect?

When I swapped over I noticed a difference within a couple weeks ( I was amazed how well they did), unlike the BRS pellets took 4 months with crappy results...and I dose 10mL of microbactor7 twice a week

The other thing I liked was the pellets are small so they tumble really easy and they smell like nopox...(which I did use briefly to help when my NO3 & PO4 were high, but nopox turns your whole tank into a bio-pellet reactor so I would be very careful if you use that...could get algae blooms (luckily I didn't when I used it)
 
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