Does Chaeto Really Remove Nitrates?

erifish3

erifish3

Member
Like the title says, does chaeto really remove or lower nitrates? I have a 100gallon FOWLR with 2 eels, v. lionfish, and a lonely damsel. My nitrates are hovering around 100, would like to lower to around 20-30 ppm. If it does work, can anybody explain how to set it up. Thanks in advance.
 
renogaw

renogaw

Active Member
correct...tis the issue with aggressive tanks.
you need to get a mechanical denitrification system. i've seen DIY ones that are pretty cool.
don't get me wrong, chaeto and a DSB in a sump will help lower your nitrates, but you need to get rid of any and all excess food asap first, and do something mechanical to completely lower it. there is always vodka dosing, but that's something that i personally am scared to start doing so you could always look into that as well...
 
cranberry

cranberry

Active Member
How much water do you change and how often? When you change your water what type of cleaning do you do within the tank?
 
reefkprz

reefkprz

Active Member
A DSB is a deep sand bed, once established a deep sand bed assists in de-nitrification.
vodka dosing is a rather strict regime of dosing vodka as a carbon source for heterotrophic bacteria, the heterotrophic bacteria consume nitrates and phophates as they grow. you need both available phophates and nitrates to use vodka dosing effectively.
google
Vodka Dosing...Distilled!
A Powerful Method for the Reduction of
Nitrates and Phosphates within the Reef Aquaria
by Nathaniel A. Walton (Genetics) and Matt Bjornson (Stony_Corals)
for a great write up on it.
I would say cranberries questions are very pertinent to the situation.
 
erifish3

erifish3

Member
On average, i do 20% water changes every 2 weeks. Once a month I'll break down filtration system and clean out all tubing, hoses, powerheads, pumps, and filters. In the last 10 days, i did a 60% water change and 3 days later, i did a 20%.
 
nycbob

nycbob

Active Member
xenia can also lower nitrate, and will look nice all over the rockwork. it doesnt even require too much light.
 
erifish3

erifish3

Member
Xenia? Wasn't aware of that. Would xenia and chaeto combined get me closer to my goal of 20-30 ppm?
 
florida joe

florida joe

Well-Known Member
IMO with nitrate readings as high as you's are the amount of water changes you would have to do and the time frame involved is not practical. You need IMO a method that is constantly assimilating your nitrates. I would look into dosing. Please do your homework on the subject first
 
skate020

skate020

Member
more LR in the sump.
or maybe get a External filter aswell. that could help, also will be a water polisher:D crystal clear waterr:D
 
17cuddlefish

17cuddlefish

Member
all these things like xenia, chaeto and more live rock in the sump will HELP a little, but the only way to get your nitrates where o want them is DO MORE WATER CHANGes, more like 20% every week at least. This is really the best way to lower your nitrates.
 
R

rcreations

Guest
Here's my advice... first of all make sure you have really good flow in the tank, so food and poop doesn't collect on the bottom and in the rocks. Second make sure you have a really good skimmer, rated higher than your tank volume, a lot higher. Then build a refugium with a DSB, LR and chaeto. Have plenty of LR in your tank but not piled up so junk can collect between rocks that you can't reach. Then simply clean up around the rocks and sand when you do your water change. You can use a turkey baster to blow junk that collects in the rock crevaces. All these things combined should help you reduce your nitrates. I have a pretty fully stocked 150gal and my nitrates never go above 20, usually hovers around 10.
 
florida joe

florida joe

Well-Known Member
Originally Posted by skate020
http:///forum/post/3181985
i thought if more LR was there it'll filter better?
Allow me to give you my take on live rock and dinitrification. But keep it to your self i am getting tired of getting stoned ( no pun intended ). Live rock became all the rage when hobbyists tried to go to a more natural setting in their tanks. The live rock colonized nitrifying bacteria was a platform for Coraline algae growth and housed a multitude of critters. An added benefit was that in the rock if the hobbyist were lucky enough some anaerobic bacteria would colonize within. The down side to this colonization was that the rock had to have the right porosity and the advection of water had to be slow enough and not to introduce to much oxygenated water. At best the denitrification was and is slow in taking place. Now lets look at what we know for a fact when we add live rock to our tank. The reason for our high nitrates will remain the same but by adding the rock we are displacing water. Now as hobbyists we have a set volume of water we maintain in our tanks and we gauge this by a water level somewhere in our system. The added rock displaces water the water level goes up we remove some water to maintain our volume which decrease the amount of dilution we have in our tank. Not good for our nitrates levels.
 
sean48183

sean48183

Member
forget chaeto, dsb, vodka or whatever. You need hair algae brother. Not in your main tank but somewhere in a sump or something where you can clean it out once a week and remove all the fish crap that it has used to grow. I use an algae scrubber in my sump and my nitrates are around 5 ppm and that is feeding twice a day flake and frozen stuff and 2 feedings of turnip greens and seaweed sheets. I also keep corals in this tank with some big crappers. Until you go green your nitrates won't come down. Hope this helps and good luck!
 
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