Nitrate temporary band-aid?

[SanDiegoIllini]

Hi there-
It looks like I'm going to be leaving town before I can get my nitrates issue resolved. I'll be gone for a week. I'm starting to get a small amount of cyano or diatoms (I don't know the difference), probably due to high nitrates. I don't want to come home to find everything dead, or everything covered in this rust/brown algae because of through the roof nitrates. They've been holding steady so far, but also I've been able to monitor, etc. In the long run, I will do water changes / redesign filtration to eliminate the root of the problem, but simply don't have time for that right now.

Is there some type of chemical additive someone might recommend that I could 'hold down the fort' with until I get back home? Again, this would not be what I would want to use as a long term strategy for managing nitrates (or even a medium term strategy) but as a band-aid.

Another idea that I had was maybe putting a 'breeding trap' kind of net or something in the main display with a lump of macroalgae. Since I'd not be home, I wouldn't care about this being in the display and ugly. It would only get the tank lighting (96w, 14k/actinic) on the normal tank cycle. Would the amount that I could fit in some such container be worth it for a 50 gallon tank? Would it get to little/too much flow in such a container? Anyone have any such container & algae that they might want to loan/rent/sell to me tomorrow?

Thanks...

[pk-sd]

How old is your tank ? What kind of corals do you have. How high are your Nitrates

Also what are you doing for water evaporation while you are away. I would be more concerned about that.

Look into this:

http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewIt...product=SC3191

I have never used it, but Seachem is a good company.

[coral diver]

If your going to use denitrate granule and donot have a canister filter you can use mine its an ehiem 2229 compelte SDFISHMAN has it give him a call just bring it back to him coz his selling it for me

[GoTakuF1]

This could be an expensive band aid but I've heard great things about AZ-NO3.

[SanDiegoIllini]

Hi there-

Topping off is my big concern. I have been paying close attention to evap rates, they are very low and I have a friend who doesn't know anything about aquariums but will stop over a couple times to add in the RO/DI water that I have. Have an auto feeder that I've adjusted to dump the smallest amount of food possible. May not even bother with that and just have the friend feed. If I do that, I'll portion it out into little medicine things to avoid overfeeding

Basically, the tank was running for a couple of years before I got it a couple weeks ago. It's a uniquarium, the guy was running it stock, with bio balls. He didn't know much about the current state of the tank, because he had lost interest and had a service taking care of it. But when I got the tank it was super clean, and healthy looking. I had enough containers to take all of his water with me, I thought this would be best to help avoid a cycle and not kill all the inhabitants.

Not really corals yet, a small clump of GSP and a little kenya tree. There is a nice pair of clowns, and the LR seems pretty good too, it's those that I'm more worried about. That, and if I could take a couple hours to prevent an algae explosion while I'm gone, it would be worth the investment to avoid many, many hours of clean up later.

Nitrates are right around 80, as they have been since I got the tank. I don't really want to remove bio-balls since the tank has been up and running fine, and if it's been operating with nitrates of 80, one more week shouldn't hurt that, I hope. But I don't want to remove the bio-balls, have an ammonia spike while I'm not home to monitor. Although, I may pull half of them before I leave, and just let the tank be noisy.

Full details of my tank are here:
http://www.sdreefs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14765

[SanDiegoIllini]

This could be an expensive band aid but I've heard great things about AZ-NO3.

Went and read a few things about it. Seems like people find it good, but having to dose in daily increments won't work for me while I am gone. Would have been good if I had time/throught of this earlier though possibly...

[SanDiegoIllini]

If your going to use denitrate granule and donot have a canister filter you can use mine its an ehiem 2229 compelte SDFISHMAN has it give him a call just bring it back to him coz his selling it for me

Thanks for the offer, I very much appreciate it. I do not have one, but might be interested in borrowing it. I'll have to see how much time I get. Leaving very soon.

PK-SD: I have read a number of good things about seachem.

This seems like a good idea. Does it require the use of canister filter as suggested above? Or maybe can I just put it in a bag in the back of the uniquarium? I'm going to call the LFS's once they open and ask about this, and if they have in stock. I'm prepared for the lecture about how I should find the source of the problem, blah, blah, blah.

[Dakota]

for temporary nitrate reduction, use Amquel Plus. Just dont' rely on it. I've used it in quick hospital tank setups. Works like a charm (and stinks, too).

[dt90gt]

A few teaspoons of vodka.

There was a thread about it on RC a while back.