Are there any serious SPS keepers using NoPox?
 

I've been using NoPox for a while at a small dose, but it seems every time I try and increase it (very slowly) I get some issue. A couple months ago it was cyano. I had been dosing 4 ml into 70 gallons, cut it back to 1. Now over two months I have slowly increased to 3.5, starting to get hints of cyano again and two of my acros have started STN'ing very slowly on the shaded side. Even with the increased dose nitrate has only dropped from about 10-12 to 7-8, so not a huge change. I also notice my polyp extension is less than before on several corals, although several other corals also seem unaffected. I cut my dose in half yesterday as I don't want to go cold turkey just yet.

I am not 100% sure NoPox is my issue but it seems to lean that direction. I have an extra dosing pump and I would prefer not to run another pump for biopellets or a chaeto reactor if I don't have to. I do not have a refugium so I do feel I need some type of nutrient reduction going.

Should I try vinegar? Switch to something else like a KZ product or similar? Just keep NoPox on a small dose and keep nitrate around 10? I'd like to keep some form of dosing even in a tiny amount because I can go about 7-10 days without cleaning the glass and only 2-3 without, but obviously at the end of the day I want to do what is best for the tank.


Thanks

It is just a carbon source.

Sugar, vinegar or vodka can do the same thing. I am not sure what is in NoPox, but it is something very similar. I won't ever dose a carbon source on a reef tank, but when I did it on a FO, I just used sugar - it was clean/pure, cheap and easy to measure.

I don't think that you will gain anything from switching, though.

I think nopox is methanol or something along those lines, basically the same as vodka as far as your tank is concerned. Keep in mind phosphates drop along with the nitrates and you don't want those getting too low. My guess is it's something else in your water chemistry though, that is not a big dose at all in a tank that size. I do 10ml of vodka in my 90ish gallon but I feed 3-4x a day.

On a side note 5-10 is a good range for nitrates, it's where I keep mine.

one important factor with any carbon dosing is you must have efficient nutrient export, either by skimming or corals utilizing the carbon dosing by product. im a zeo guy, and with carbon dosing if you over do food, aminos, additives, or under skim you can have problems. good luck. zsu

one thing ive learned with zeo is run the biggest tank and or sump you can, the more water the better. my sump is the same size as my display and im thinking about going bigger on the sump. its just so much easier when params dont jump around

From what I have researched NoPox is basically 60% vinegar and 40% vodka, although according to Red Sea it's a little more complicated than that.

I came home tonight and there's a bit more cyano so I have cut my dose down to 1 ml from about 3.5 it was before. I have only five small fish, small cuc, feed pellets on auto feeder (small amount) twice a day and frozen once. Pretty light load.

Here's the deal;

- Tank is three months old, rock is eleven months old. Started originally with dry rock
- I have a good skimmer
- running GFO in a reactor and carbon in a bag in sump baffle

I don't really feel my water can be much better;

Salinity 1.0255-1.026
Calcium 430-440
Alk 7.7 - 8.0. I test every day and 90% of the time it's 7.8 or 7.9
Mag 1320
Nitrate 7-8
Phosphate .02-.06 depending on what I feed

My tank is doing ok but can certainly be better. I have an eight bulb Sunpower over it which should be tons of light, I started conservatively with it 16" above water and 5 hour main photoperiod, 7 hour total. I'm now at 13" and 6.5 main 8.5 total, so I'm probably halfway to where I will end up, too little light intensity could certainly be the issue. I have some corals like setosa and acans doing great, a Cali tort growing like crazy, but some others just existing and kind of meh.

I'm concerned however about stopping NoPox altogether as other than skimmer and gfo I have no other means of nutrient reduction. No fuge, no pellets, no scrubber, etc.

Agreed nopox is pretty much just ethanol and vinegar. Even though your rock is a little older I wonder if it's a little early for the tank to need the carbon dosing.

Alright

I'm going to skim wetter, as I admittedly have been skimming on the dry side. Red Sea says to skim wet but I'm a stubborn doofus. This could be leading to a bacteria or carbon buildup and causing the cyano. I'm also going to keep the nopox dose at 1ml until I see improvement and maybe dose a bit of Stability daily to hopefully get good bacteria taking over from the bad.

it contains aspartic acid aswell

Your tank is three months old. All of this is not only quite normal, but also quite necessary. You need to stop with all chemical additives (GFO too) and let it finish cycling - this can take six to nine months or even a year before it is effective at handling NO3 and swapping P well. You are just stalling this by using all of this stuff. There is nothing that you can do to speed this up. Eventually, you will wind up with no NO3 and just a trace of P, have lots of pods with coralline and sponges everywhere and then you are done. Just keep the big 3 stable and wait.

Patience
 

Agree with this, its so hard to just watch it, we always want to do something.

Yep. Cyano is basically unavoidable on a new tank no matter what you do. That's the one nuisance that I never worry about. It'll go away just with time and good husbandry. Same thing with things like diatoms and jumpy nitrates and phosphates.

Additionally, you are going to have the standard "dry rock" issues that will require attention, but the cycle needs to happen first. A reasonable timeline might be this time next year - most dry rock really slows stuff down.

I don't know how much of a cycle I will have, I used all the rock and sand from my old tank which was about eight months old when I upgraded. If you are referring to a "N&P" cycle and not the typical ammonia/nitrogen cycle, then I probably agree. It also does seem dry rock takes longer for sure. I do have four litres of Matrix in my sump as well.

I will just keep on keeping on. I don't really want to just let it go because I do have a bunch of nice corals in there, if it takes another couple months beyond what is considered normal, I guess that is ok. Agree with the poster saying it's hard to leave it alone, it's not hard, it's frigging agony (lol).

I do have a good sponge population, in fact I have one spaghetti sponge that is kind of invasive and growing a lot, if anyone knows anything I can do about that thing, I'm all ears. Manual removal is fine but it just grows back.

I'd agree with just letting things be. All I have on my tank for nutrient reduction is a skimmer and a couple liters of Siporax (which I don't think are denitrifying how I have it placed). NO3 and po4 are undetectable and I'm constantly trying to add nutrients. You don't need to add nutrients reducing methods unless you're overfeeding or overstocked. It will balance out if you give it some time. I agree that a year is about right - maybe 18 months. New tanks suck! [emoji14]

i like mykas siporax idea, im not a fan of gfo ime it causes problems. i run three reefs only one is zeo and you dont use gfo on a zeo tank, the other two are just your run of the mill avg. reefs and no gfo on them either, i have tried gfo but it takes out all the po4 and thats as bad as high levels. you need some po4 to keep no3 low. anyway i like the siporax idea and am going to try it myself on my normal reefs. good luck n stuff zsu

Bit of an update;

I am running gfo but only about 2/3 recommended amount, every time I test po4 (Hanna ULR) I get somewhere between .02-.07, and I have little bits of hair algae around, so there is some phos in there. I tested nitrate tonight (Salifert) and it's hard to tell, in the regular test it looks like about 15-20 but high resolution test more like 10... so somewhere in there. I have cut my nopox dose by 90% from ten days ago, so that makes sense I guess. The reason I keep reducing is i have cyano getting worse, hoping to just keep rolling with it and hopefully it burns out. My tank looks like total crap right now though and I have had to back off my doser a bit since it seems growth is slowing too. :( just have to keep telling myself to leave it alone.

i find on my zeo reef that if i have a tinge of cyano goin on my tank corals are rockin. so im riding that edge for growth in lieu of aestetics until the reef fills in. if i know im having someone over i will back off on the zeostart and spongepower for a few days and the tank cleans up pretty quick. its really quite interesting and no matter how long i have done this im still learning something all the time. good luck n stuff.... zsu

btw, i do not run ultra low nutrient, even the zeo reef looks and runs better with n03 and po4. i feel to run ultra low on such a small reef (50 gal with a 50gal sump) is a bit risky. hmm maybe i ll go with a 100 gal sump... zsu

Ok so here we are about 3.5 weeks later, I'm still battling cyano. It seems lighter than it was and grows back a little slower. I have been siphoning it with water changes 1-2 times per week. It grows back after about 2-3 days, although slightly thinner. It's mostly on the sand but some grows on the rocks which is easy to blow off. I guess (hope) I'm on the right track, just taking longer than I expected. My nopox dose is only .3 ml daily.

The good news is over the last ten days or so my corals are starting to look happier and my alk consumption has gone up quite a bit.

That is good to hear. Keep the updates coming. I'm sure the cyano will go away eventually with time and good maintenance.


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NoPox will drop your NO3 and PO4 to slap 0... if thats what you're after

As above, but perhaps PO4 may start to rise once NO3 becomes limited.

If you want to lower both NO3 and PO4, but maintain some to ensure that your corals will not starve and die, then I would suggest Tropic Marin NP-Bacto-Balance.

I have been using this product for more than two years. If you are on Facebook have a look at a Note I prepared on this product:

https://www.facebook.com/notes/trout...4790687313347/

This isn't available in the US :(



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