Newb73
Valuable Member
Okay so my reef is 1 year old.
I had a pretty bad cyano that slowly built over the early spring.
The weekend before last i put a 40g tank in the floor mixed it with salt and sat there and washed nearly every rock in the tank in this salt bath, effectively removing 90% of the cyano.
The problem is i had been battling nitrate and phopshates for a while and was losing.
Massive water changes didn't work...though maybe my water was bad in spite of my 7 stage RODI unit (2 RODIs, a prefilter, 2 carbon blocks and 2 DI resins). I changed one of the resins a while back the water had always been 0 tds coming out of the first resin.
I thought it was my salts so when i finished up both of the Red sea pro and the HW marinmix ( both of which i thought made the cyano worse) i went back to instant ocean.
I ran massive amounts of both carbon and GFO. The GFO would reduce the phosphate but the nitrates never really went down and cyano got worse.
I also ran biopelllets...maybe they were the issue?
I run an awesome skimmer, an aquamax cone s CO3 which is always maintainted, as it is an automatic neck cleaner and a large davy jones locker attached to it. I always skimmed pretty wet
Okay so.....a week ago i decided to take the pellets offline. I got myself a geo reef ozone reactor and an Aquamax TS2 sulfur denitrator.
I am still waiting on my poisidon ozone generator, i sat up the reactor but only tested it out for function, never ran it.
So I turned OFF my skimmer, and also turned off both my GAC and GFO. I also have not done a water change in over 2 weeks.
i set up the sulfur denitrator on sunday. One of the most hassel free reactor set ups i have ever done by the way.
So....i t
My Nitrates which was a perpetual 0.75 on the red sea pro test dropped to .025 and then to 0 Just like that.
Phosphates which go up and down depending on when i change the GFO schedule. When last i checked it had spiked to .11 on Sept 1, a sign that i needed fresh GFO..but remember i turned it off.
And just like that it is 0.....
Okay so...no skimmer, no gac, no gfo, ozone is not up and running yet.
3 days with a sulfu denitrator and my corals look fantastic, my nitrates and phosphates are so low i may have to start dosing coral foods.
AND, i went from feeding 2 cubes per day and some pellets........ to feeding 3 to 4 cubes per day, pellets, nori, some krill and seaweed extreme pellets.
"okay newb...you must have changed SOMETHING else"
Correct you are, i went from changing my filter socks every 3 days to changing them every 2 days.
Biopellets are STILL running!
So....... what gives?
A sulfur denitrator should not cycle that fast...and changing the filter socks every 2 days sure isn't that much of a miracle cure.
By all accounts with my skimmer off, gfo off, gac off and no water changes..and those nasty biopellets still running, my tank should be in very bad shape right now.....
Not only are my corals looking awesome, i am having to increase my calcium and alk and mg dosing schedules as it is consuming more. Acans i thought were going to die are growing again.
..............Are sulfur denitrators really that good? I am so confused.
To be honest, i am half tempted to just leave the biopellets running, remove both the gac and gfo reactors although i will probably still add the ozone as from what Randy says, ozone makes organics more usable to bacteria (which might feed the cyano), should help feed the sulfur denitrator?
I had a pretty bad cyano that slowly built over the early spring.
The weekend before last i put a 40g tank in the floor mixed it with salt and sat there and washed nearly every rock in the tank in this salt bath, effectively removing 90% of the cyano.
The problem is i had been battling nitrate and phopshates for a while and was losing.
Massive water changes didn't work...though maybe my water was bad in spite of my 7 stage RODI unit (2 RODIs, a prefilter, 2 carbon blocks and 2 DI resins). I changed one of the resins a while back the water had always been 0 tds coming out of the first resin.
I thought it was my salts so when i finished up both of the Red sea pro and the HW marinmix ( both of which i thought made the cyano worse) i went back to instant ocean.
I ran massive amounts of both carbon and GFO. The GFO would reduce the phosphate but the nitrates never really went down and cyano got worse.
I also ran biopelllets...maybe they were the issue?
I run an awesome skimmer, an aquamax cone s CO3 which is always maintainted, as it is an automatic neck cleaner and a large davy jones locker attached to it. I always skimmed pretty wet
Okay so.....a week ago i decided to take the pellets offline. I got myself a geo reef ozone reactor and an Aquamax TS2 sulfur denitrator.
I am still waiting on my poisidon ozone generator, i sat up the reactor but only tested it out for function, never ran it.
So I turned OFF my skimmer, and also turned off both my GAC and GFO. I also have not done a water change in over 2 weeks.
i set up the sulfur denitrator on sunday. One of the most hassel free reactor set ups i have ever done by the way.
So....i t
My Nitrates which was a perpetual 0.75 on the red sea pro test dropped to .025 and then to 0 Just like that.
Phosphates which go up and down depending on when i change the GFO schedule. When last i checked it had spiked to .11 on Sept 1, a sign that i needed fresh GFO..but remember i turned it off.
And just like that it is 0.....
Okay so...no skimmer, no gac, no gfo, ozone is not up and running yet.
3 days with a sulfu denitrator and my corals look fantastic, my nitrates and phosphates are so low i may have to start dosing coral foods.
AND, i went from feeding 2 cubes per day and some pellets........ to feeding 3 to 4 cubes per day, pellets, nori, some krill and seaweed extreme pellets.
"okay newb...you must have changed SOMETHING else"
Correct you are, i went from changing my filter socks every 3 days to changing them every 2 days.
Biopellets are STILL running!
So....... what gives?
A sulfur denitrator should not cycle that fast...and changing the filter socks every 2 days sure isn't that much of a miracle cure.
By all accounts with my skimmer off, gfo off, gac off and no water changes..and those nasty biopellets still running, my tank should be in very bad shape right now.....
Not only are my corals looking awesome, i am having to increase my calcium and alk and mg dosing schedules as it is consuming more. Acans i thought were going to die are growing again.
..............Are sulfur denitrators really that good? I am so confused.
To be honest, i am half tempted to just leave the biopellets running, remove both the gac and gfo reactors although i will probably still add the ozone as from what Randy says, ozone makes organics more usable to bacteria (which might feed the cyano), should help feed the sulfur denitrator?
