Kessil

Nitrate Question

MolaMola

Supporting Member
I seem to be missing a big part of the nitrate picture. I usually have 0 nitrate, so some people would suggest I dose nitrate. I also hear some reefers say filter floss/socks can be nitrate factories, which is considered bad. What is the difference?
 
i run a filter floss that i change out every 3 days or so. only thing i do would be feed heavier on meatier foods like frozen mysis, drain the water to not increase more po4, and dry skim on skimmer to raise my no3. i prefer the natural approach rather than dosing other things i dont have to.
 
The term nitrate factory is not a good term. When people say that, they mean that crap gets trapped in there and rots, release nitrate/phosphate from feeding/waste back into the water. It does NOT mean that it makes nitrate on it’s own.

Having high nitrate is bad because if a pest algae gets hold it can explode. Having 0 nitrate is bad because you need a tiny bit of nitrate for all the stuff you want to grow in your tank, like coral, to use as nutrients. Another problem with 0 nitrate is that Cyanobacteria can thrive as long as there are the other required nutrients since they can use nitrogen from N2, while everything else that relies on nitrate starves.
 
You want a bit of nitrate in your tank ideally from fish and feeding your tank.

You don't want to starve the tank and have 0.

Likewise, you don't want a big pile of decomposing waste in the corner generating nitrates. ( Or a nasty filter sock/floss ).

Personal experience; I ran biopellets on a tank with really low bio load and by stripping the nitrates I ended up with cyano everywhere. Literally a week after removing pellets, no more cyano. Now that doesn't mean biopellets are bad or caused cyano; it was user error on my behalf since I was using media I had no need for.
 
Good info from all, thanks. Guess I thought instead of extra food input or dosing I could just leave some floss in a media chamber (small tanks) or at sump drain (big).
 
Nitrate issues covered above.

Opinion : The main problem with floss / socks is laziness.
It all starts out great, nicely filtering out detritus.
But then people forget to clean them regularly.
So now that detritus sits in a high flow area, and thus rots very quickly.
However - so what? That detritus would end up settling in your sump and probably rotting anyway.

So I would actually say : Socks/floss are either useful or a waste of time, and not really a bad thing.
 
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