[wozza]

Well, as no one else i know cares about or even understands the levels of chemicals in my tanks.

i thorght ide share my happyness with you lot

YEY finaly after 6 months my Nitrates are undetcalble!!!!!!!!!!!!

cheers james.

[Reefland]

Excellent! What do you contribute your success to?

[wozza]

when i first started my tank i was useing dechloronated tap water for water changes and top up, and for filtration i was useing live rock, trickle filter and a skimmer.
no matter how many water changes i did my nitrates were allways above 50ppm.

so about 2-3 months ago i stoped useing tap water and started useing R/O water, then about 2 weeks ago i took out the trickle filter and am just useing live rock and the skimmer for filtration, since then my star polyps have started looking better and now i have only minamal algie.

moral of the story "ONLY USE R/O IN A MARINE TANK" tap water is tooooooo much hassle in the long run (at least mine is!!)

[smidoid]

I'm growing Cyano to see if that helps! ;-)

[wozza]

at reducing nitrates?
im sure it will!!!!!!

[rjs5134]

Just a thought concerning nitrates... I've been told numerous times that due to the cyano outbreak, it makes sense that my test kits read zero nitrates. In fact, every test I've done since cycling has read zero. Same goes for phosphates and I've used multiple brand test kits for each. Even my replacement water reads zero. It seems the real test for nitrates and phosphates is the presence of, or lack of, a cyano bloom. Test kits are not a good indicator

I guess a good means for exporting excess nutrient, at least until I upgrade my skimmer, would be to perform a small water change every 2 or 3 days and concentrate on cyano removal.

May sound a little cynical, but I think it makes sense. Anyhow, congrats on reaching zero, hopefully it stays that way Wozza. I look forward to the day when I test zero nitrates/phosphates and have no cyano.

Rob