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Anonymous
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ChrisRD":elz6zg7b said:FWIW, I understood it Guy.
Those quotes are interesting... ...apparently 6 months and still 20 PPM... ...what happenend to 0.0 after 3 weeks?... :lol:
Guy's posts are absolutely correct and the reason I now recommend establishing thriving plant life right from the get go. Once I updated the lighting on my in tank refug, nitrates went to 0-5ppm in 3 weeks. With a thriving nitrate factory. 160++ppm went to 0.0 in another tank with no circulation and only a small bioload in 3 weeks after adding macros. But with a thriving nitrate factory and by not estabishing the thriving plant life as part of the initial setup, nitrates did rise. Even with that the system turned around with the addition of plant life. but full consumption of the nitrates took the increased lighting and plant life.
the same thing that happened in this Fw tank:
http://www.reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=60020
So with or without canister filters, UGF, fluidized bed filters, sand beds, trickle filters, bio balls, bio wheels, circulation, water changes, ro/di water, and at very high bioloads you can have 0.0 nitrates with sufficient plant life thriving. For Fw, salt fo, salt fowlr, brackish, reef, aquariums, and/or ponds.
but any attempt to maintain any of those absolutely devoid of all plant life is futile. So you may as well start with plant life you like. then if you like say a fluidized bed filter you won't have nitrates from that.
