ok i was wondering if i could get some suggestions from you guys. i got a 37 gal reef, and im fightin nitrates, and unfortunately, im losing. i was talkin to my brother, who is a super reef geek, and hes helped me out some, but i think imma start my whole tank over again. i wanna take everything out, drain the water, and change the sand. im wondering if anyone has ever done this type of major operation, and if i can get any suggestions on keeping my corals and fish alive durring this process.
so far, im plannin on gettin a 50 gal trash can, and puttin all my water, fish and corals in there while i change out the water and sand, and just re-acclimate everything while puttin it all back in the tank.
any suggestions at all will be greatly appreciated!
Honestly, i would suggest you leave it alone. Any nitrate problem can be overcome with good husbrandry. Cut back on your feedings and increase your water changes until the problem is under control. After a move a couple of years ago a neglected my tank for far too long. My nitrates were off the chart and i felt probably a lot like you do now. It didnt seem like anything made an impact, even large waterchanges. However, after doing several weekly 50% water changes over the course of a month or so my nitrates were in check. Keep in mind that large water changes might have some negative impacts becuase you will be changing your water chemistry so rapidly so its always a good idea to keep a close eye on your animals.
i hear ya, but i think its my sand thats producing it. i have about 4 inches of 5 year old crushed coral in there. im thinkin about doing a plenum and putting in a shallow fine grain sand in there. i think it will make it look a lot better too. plus ive heard that guys with plenums have absolutely 0 nitrate problems.
If your convinced that you want to do a plenum, then kaptken would be the man to talk to. Personally, i dont think there are any advantages to a plenum that cant be achieved with easier methods. If you feel that the sand is an issue, and you really want to change it for asthetic reasons, then vacuum it out when you do waterchanges. Do a few cups at a time do you dont wipeout the microfauna and slowly replace it with the sand you prefer. Its always a good idea to go with mixgrain sand so you shouldnt have to take out all of the CC, simply mix it with finer grain sand. The different size pieces are going to be beneficial to a lot of potential fish that you might want to keep in a smaller tank(ie., gobies, jawfishes, etc)
I tend to agree with Logan’s daddy. Changing out all of the sand will put you back at square one and it won’t keep the nitrates from coming back unless you figured out why they accumulated in the first place. If you do decide to change out your sand I would do it in stages so that you can keep some of the critters to seed the new sand.
Thanks for the Que Logans-daddy. Yup I like plenums. Its a denitrating deep sandbed but without the major potential to go sour and make hydrogen sulfides. there are many ways to lower nitrates. first is reduce food input, but i dont like that because its bad for the fish. I like to feed them, a lot. keeps them healthy. Skimming removes some of the organics before they are turned to nitrates by the bio filter. with clean RO water and water changes you can reduce the nitrate level, but never really get it to zero. so you need an export strategey or two.
Plenums and fine DSBs can denitrate. my personal preference is the plenum DSB. Live rock performs some denitrating within the rock, just below the surface. but you should keep the rock clean and free of detritus clogging the cracks and pores. Blow it off regularly with a power head and filter the cloud out. also clean the sand top layer so that it can breath too.
We all like to use a refugium to grow macro algae which when harvested and tossed out or traded, removes the nitrates they eat. and then you can build or buy a denitrator/ either straight drip anerobic or the sulfur fed ones. Here is a DIY plan for a simple drip, syphon fed anerobic denitrator. works great when you have a sump.
rather than feeding it with a pump, just set it up to syphon water from the overflow box. it just needs a steady slow drip, and output to the sump. by puting an airline syphon tube into the overflow with a sponge filter over it, you can’t drain the tank and overflow the sump during a power failure.
I think somebody here was going to build a sulfur denitrator.
any combination of the above strategies should help get nitrates at or very near zero. I have lots-o-rock, Plenum sandbeds, skimmers, and refugiums. Works fine for me.
Or the easiest method of all for most nubies is to just grow a bumper crop of hair algae in the tank. Nitrates are always zero in hair infested tanks. The hair just eats it all. so there’s nothing wrong with your nitrate test kit.
I will vouch for the denitrator. Personally its one of the most important pieces of equipment i use and is pretty much bullet proof. I recently renovated my fish room and a project that i thought was going to take a week or two ending up taking almost 5 months. Suffice it to say that my tank was heavily neglected from January until recently. I didnt do any water changes, i wasnt skimming for half the time, and my denitrator was not hooked up. I finally finished things up and began testing and dialing things in again about a month ago. My nitrates were about 80ppm which is half as bad as i expected. I cycled my denitrator and within 2 weeks they were less than 10ppm.
I like the denitrator because of what Ken said about fish. I could not agree more. I love big fat healthy fish and i like to make sure i can feed them without having to worry about nitrates. A denitrato, IMO, is not a subsitute for waterchanges but it will definitley keep nitrates in check. If your going to attempt to create a large bacteria population why not keep it in a bottle? >LOL<
I’m fight with nitrates as well. I built a DIY coil denitrator that was posted on RC. I built mine with a double coil on the exterior for my 125g tank with approx. 150g total volume with sump and refugium. It’s been running for almost 2 weeks now, last time I tested my efluient the reading was similar to my tanks. The post stated that it could take 4 to 6 weeks to cycle to begin seeing results in the tank.
The build was rather easy once all the proper tools were found and purchased. The most expensive pieces were the JG fittings and possbly the bio balls. I had some from my old wet/dry sump that i recycled. It was probably about $50 in materials altogether.
ok, now ive had this battle for the longest time…and kind of feel like ive won. as some people know, i always had nitrate issues, whether they were low, or blood red on the charts. Then after i got my house bug bombed and a lot of stuff in my tank suffered, my nitrates went through the roof…and i was at the same point of thinking about breaking down the tank…
from one stand point you have to look at the timeline and think, could i reverse the nitrates in the amount of time it would take a new tank to establish…taking out all the sand would be removing a major filter…and by starting brand new, u could be creating a new cycle…probley just a mini one tho.
i had a 20 gal. long sitting around for the longest time and decided i would finally build a sump…now i have a skimmer, a lot of mineral mud+sand+rock, and some slicia+phosphate removers that i keep in front of my return pump…I also have a 6500k clip on light that makes my chaeto grow like crazy…i also prune this back weekly…
also after the little incident with the bug bomb, i lost a school i five green chromis that i shouldnt of had in the first place, this lessened the strain on my bio load…so you should also look at if you are past or close to the boundary of how many fish ur tank can house…
with the addition of the 'fuge, my nitrates have been undetectible or remain under 5…
i also agree that you may want to find out what the problem is before u decide to move on or ur not really solving too much…is it infact the CC? could it be feeding? is there a weekly dead snail laying somewhere? and so on…
but there is more than one way to relieve this problem, a 'fuge isnt the only resort, just the one that worked for me…depending on space…u have many options…
my questions are…
what are your nitrates testing at right now?
does your tank currently have a sump or is this an option?
are u patient enough to let the denitrator “break” in?
what size tank do you have? and how approx. how many complete inches of fish do u think u have?
[quote=“logans_daddy, post:8, topic:1663”]
I will vouch for the denitrator. Personally its one of the most important pieces of equipment i use and is pretty much bullet proof.[/quote]
Just curious Shawn, what type of denitrator do you use? We are thinking about going with more SPS when we set up our next tank and I am going to invest more heavily in equipment before then. Trying to get people’s opinions on the different types.
I've heard they work pretty well, heres the one I built. Can't tell ya well it works or doesn't work,have not gotten the media yet for it.
[img]http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u8/raptor71/022-3.jpg[/img]
as far as fish go, i only have 3 and they total about 7 inches all together. i use primo water from lowes for water changes. i wanna go with the plenum because this is a budget thing, and i dont have a sump or an overflow. i think its my sand basically because its so old and i cant find any other reason. i was thinkin about using live sand in order to make the cycle a little easier on the fish and corals, although i mainly have shrooms in my tank, and they are usually fairly forgiving. im kinda worried about my trumpets and my hammer corals though. ??? but those denitrator seem pretty cheap and easy too. btw… my nitrates are at a steady 50ppm right now, and ive even been doing 30% water changes at least twice a week for about a month. its just frustrating!!
Wow, nice job Billrob. Im guessing thats the plans from DJFrankie on reefcentral? You really did a nice job!
Most of you know that ive been preaching these reactors for a longtime and i absolutely love mine. I only have experience with the sulfur reactors but ive heard that the coil works equally well. I know some people feel that they are unnecessary and generally dont like them, but heres my :TWOCENTS for what it worth.
Denitrators are great but are no subsitute for good husbandry(i.e. waterchanges). Although they keep your nitrates in check they wont do anything about the depletion of trace elements that you lose overtime. I skim heavy, run a denitrator, and have a refugium. My refugium is exactly that, refuge. If i want to give a fish or invert special attention i will throw it in the fuge. I also thing they are of great importance for maintaining divirsity with your microfauna. Im always surprised by the things i see in my fuge that ive never seen in my tank. I like that i can feed very heavy and not have to worry about a nitrate spike. I like that(god forbid) i lose a fish that i can allow nature to runs its course without having to worry about a nitrate spike. For me, a denitrator is all about insurance. People go to great lenghts to colonize bacteria for denitrification. There is prodibio, zeovit, vodka dosing, plenums, etc etc…essentially they are all means to the same end. Why risk a bloom in your tank(i.e, vodka dosing) or a tank crash(i.e., plenum) when you can simply keep the bacteria in a bottle? The dont need to be adjusted and there is 0 risk that i can think of that could cause problems other than the quick drop in nitrates after installation or the 0 oxygen content of the effluent.
Belllamy - I was going to suggest the exact same reactor billrob built. It can be build for about $20 and the price of a maxijet. The designer suggests the use of things like forstner bits and taps which will make things easier but they are not absolutely necessary. Maybe you could get together with billrob before you leave? I probably have most of the PVC laying around and your more than welcome to it. Billrob did a really nice job, it looks exactly like the plans and i would imagine it wll function rather well.
[quote=“matchu627, post:13, topic:1663”]
as far as fish go, i only have 3 and they total about 7 inches all together. i use primo water from lowes for water changes. i wanna go with the plenum because this is a budget thing, and i dont have a sump or an overflow. i think its my sand basically because its so old and i cant find any other reason. i was thinkin about using live sand in order to make the cycle a little easier on the fish and corals, although i mainly have shrooms in my tank, and they are usually fairly forgiving. im kinda worried about my trumpets and my hammer corals though. ??? but those denitrator seem pretty cheap and easy too. btw… my nitrates are at a steady 50ppm right now, and ive even been doing 30% water changes at least twice a week for about a month. its just frustrating!![/quote]
i was at the same nitrate level as you, blood red!! how old is your test kit, mine wasnt that old…but after buying one that was a little bit better i was getting two differnet readings, until they both came up at zero…
3 fish doesnt seem like too many depending on the size of the tank…i also didnt have stock overflow on my tank and i couldnt drill…so i made the overflow out of PVC with an Aqua Lifter on it thats hidden in the rock tower…its never failed in over 2 years (the trick is you need a really good Air Line Check Valve!!).
but as you can see you have many options that will all get you to the same outcome if done correctly.
Let me know if you find a cheap source for the sulfur. I know some people use sulfur pellets made for agriculture but i dont know much about them. Im going to need to purchase some in the near future for my denitrator on my new tank.
Cheapest I found was about $20.00 for a gallon plus shipping. Made by carib sea.
Also say people but arm media in as well but since I have a calcium reactor also don't want to over due it. Was thinking about a phosphate remover (Granular Ferric Oxide PELLETS ) in the top hafe but still looking into that, or if I want to make a separate reactor for that.
There are a lot of reasons why you cant mix the two meadia so your definitely going to want a seperate reactor for GFO. There was a great thread on RC with a guy that did regular readings with a Hans PO4 meter to test the effectivness and longevity of GFO. It seems to lose its usefullness in about 3 months and a lot of people believe that it leeches PO4 over time. Since ive been running the same sulfur for almost 2 years i wouldnt recommend mixing the two not to mention that the drip rate for GFO and a sulfur reactor ary very different.
Yes, after you set up a denitrator, the flow rate is most critical to make it perform best. Our friend, REEFZIG has a very small anerobic denitrator on his 125 gallon reef tank that works just fine. no sand beds, but lots of rock, a skimmer and the denitrator. But his optimal denitrator flow rate is 3-4 drops per second. Very slow, but the effluent is Zero nitrates, and the tank stays low, near zero. But he also has a very small fish bioload. sounds like a small flow rate, but over time it turns the tank water over. depending on your tank’s daily build up of nitrates. 90840 drops per gallon. you figure it out for your system and load. just make a bigger denitrator. they are cheap.