I’m growing impatient w/ my nitrate issue and have limited time to do the constant water changes necessary to reduce them. So…
I’m thinking about emptying the tank and starting it fresh with RODI water (instead of tap) this time.
If I were to do this, I’d need to temporarily store the sand/rock, 2 Chromis’s and a few frag plugs in some buckets for a bout 48hrs while I fill and add the fresh salt and give the sump a spring cleaning.
Just a few power heads to keep everything circulated? I have two 30gallon Brute trash cans to put everything in, and two heaters. I can lay the 48" LED light across both to give em some light. I also have an air pump that I can daisy chain to aerate both.
Nitrates are pretty easy to defeat in a young tank typically. Often the hardest part to fix is the cause which is typically not enough water changes for the amount of food going in. You don’t need to fix a bad habit you’ve had for a while, but just dilute it.
Even 50% water changes would likely be less stressful then what you proposed above. After three(if your at 80ppm) you could be down to 10ppm. I would recommend skipping a day in between each. This is being ultra aggressive and is pretty dangerous, but again so is what you have above.
Did I ever get around to sending you a PM? If it didn’t come through let me know.
More stress will be caused with all the moving then you would get from 3 or 4 large water changes, and we all know more stress is bad for our little buddies.
I don’t know if nitrates are like phosphates, but i had phosphates leech out of my rock for about 4 months. Nitrate could be leeching from your rock/sand from when you filled up with tap water?
From what you posted your bioload is pretty light so I’m thinking you probably aren’t building up nitrates from excess fish waste unless you’re overfeeding.
I have read that with algae scrubber and bio pellets you have to have nitrates and phosphates for them to work properly. So if you have low po4 and high trates you won’t drop your trates. So most likely you will have to use something specifically for nitrates to lower them
with a young tank and so light of stocking, I would say you need to find the source, over feeding is very easy with that light of a load one cube of food would be like 4 times to much.
Make sure you have a good CUC in the fuge and give your sandbed a good vacuum, use a sump sock on the drain and change it every two to three days.
Removing all the water and cleaning will most likely cause some die-off and a cycle.
[quote=“dunk, post:6, topic:5625”]
I have read that with algae scrubber and bio pellets you have to have nitrates and phosphates for them to work properly. So if you have low po4 and high trates you won’t drop your trates. So most likely you will have to use something specifically for nitrates to lower them[/quote]
I have also read that dunk! Being as the tank was filled with tap water there are bound to be some phosphates.
Far, have you tested for phosphate? Do you have alot of algae growth?
Yeah, I’m running BioPellets and De-Nitrate…interesting about the Phosphates being necessary to get the bio-pellets run properly.
My current guess is that the sump has a buildup of detritus in it since I haven’t cleaned it since the tank came online. How often do you guys clean your sump/fuge?
As for feeding, its just the 2 Chromis’. I feed 2x a day with flake food. Just a pinch that they devour in about 30seconds. I also drop in about 6 “Sera - marin granules” since they fall to the bottom easily to feed the Nass snails (since they don’t eat algae)…maybe thats over doing it?
I have vacuumed the sand bed multiple times already during regular water changes with the main goal being to remove detritus.
Curious to see what the groups input will be re: sump maintenance, and how regular you do it.
I also think my current skimmer sucks…Its grabbing skimmate…nice dark green stuff too…but the volume that it actually removes is pretty minimal. I only have about 2 inches of skimmate at the bottom of the 2litre bottle that its been overflowing into for about a month. Too little?
I have some diatoms left over. I get the most algae growth on my overflow box, but the Astrea snails clean that up pretty regularly. I’m “guessing” that my phosphates are pretty low as algae has not been an issue with my very minimal CUC. (3 Nass, 3 Cerith, 3 Astrea) pretty minimal considering the tank size, but then again, its VERY lightly stocked at the moment.
Does not sound as if you are overdoing the food if the chromis are eating the entire pinch. (a “pinch” of food can be starving the fish or massively over feeding, but if they eat all of it you are good) You should not need to feed the snails anything unless you had 0 fish for 3+ months.
Phosphates leach into rock, Nitrates do not. A 50% water change will reduce 80ppm down to 40ppm. Typically a denitrator(95% of the time) in three months will reduce 80ppm to 78ppm. Biopellets are a food source, organic carbon, for hetertrophic bacteria that also feed off of Nitrates and Phosphates and require all three. Biopellets won’t help the tank significantly with our a good skimmer and water changes.
Many hobbyist will spend months reading and years experimenting to avoid water changes. To each their own. I find it more enjoyable to frag corals before they overgrow each other then to struggle to find the hard way to do things.
Sounds like you need to address the skimmer, I hear a two litter bottle and wonder if the skimmer is getting cleaned regually ? I know I need to clean mine twice a week normally and wet skim normally a green tea color.
Good point Hudzon, I clean the skimmer about 1x a week (admittedly maybe longer sometimes). Atleast I clean the bubble chamber where all the magic is supposed to happen at the top part of the skimmer.
Jon if Phosphates leach into rock I am assuming they also leach out? What causes both to happen? I feel like I am having some leach out of my rocks at the moment. I have some cyano growing on my sand and on a small amount of my rock throughout the tank. Coraline growth has slowed way down and from what i have read this is all signs of elevated phosphates. I have been trying to change 10% of my water every two weeks with ro/di, I feed my fish once or twice a week max and have a decent skimmer and fuge. Most corals are still growing. I do have one or two sps starting to bleach from the base of the colony attached to my rock but the tips of the same colony are growing. Then I fragged the same coral to a fresh plug and have no issues??? I read the bleaching from the base and growing from the tips is also due to phosphates leaching out of the rock into the coral?? In summary I feel like the cyano, sps issue, and coralline growth slowing down are all reslated to maybe the phosphates leaching out of my rock. My parameters are approx:
I’ll address the the “how often do you clean your sump?” question …
I haven’t cleaned mine in about 4 years. The fuge is a mess, lots of algae, critters, and gunk (gunk I will remove), and looks disgusting, but that’s what a fuge is supposed to look like.
The flake food may very well be the culprit in your nitrate issue, I’ve yet to find flake food that doesn’t contain nitrates and phosphates. A little won’t have too much effect, unless it’s a little a couple times a day, for months on end - then they have a tendency to add up.
If you’re not having algae issues it may be that your test kit is off, have you tried taking a water sample to a LFS to have it tested by them yet?
Testing phosphates is hard until the Hanna came out but algae can eat it and testing reads low. The phosphates will enter the rock if the concentration in the water is higher than the rock. They will leach out of the rock if the phos in the rock is higher than the water. I had softies for a while and had po4 at 4.0 with a cheap kit. It was bound in my rock too but gfo works as advertised it dropped pretty quick in the water and now the rocks are free too. A lot talk about curing live rock to remove p04 but you can run gfo in the tank and it’ll be gone. it’s a constant cycle from water to rock from rock to water. I will always run gfo but it’s expensive and I hope to be able to decrease the amount needed with a big fuge and algae scrubber
mortyn may be easier to keep on separate topic to keep things clear just PM me link if I don’t see it, but headed out of town for the rest of the week.
How is your Mg? try to boost Calcium a little. Flow and light? Do you run GFO or other phosphate removers?
Videos of tank can be more helpful. Shoot me a PM with your location as well if I am in the area frequently and your home perhaps I can look over the tank.
[quote=“dunk, post:17, topic:5625”]
The phosphates will enter the rock if the concentration in the water is higher than the rock. They will leach out of the rock if the phos in the rock is higher than the water.[/quote]
Well said. Once high it is a struggle for a while as it will take time, but keep with it for a couple months and things should be significantly better.(assuming regular water changes with 0ppm TDS RODI and not too much is going in)
The biggest struggle is often correcting the original issue. Once you have found the source(high TDS, over feeding, under filtering) then half the struggle is over and you just have to give it time.
Very low flow can form higher pockets of nutrients in an other wise stable tank. Significant flow will carry nutrients to the GFO and skimmer and keep them in the water column for coral to consume and water changes to dilute.
Battling nutrients is often most of the struggle with a reef aquarium. One important note is that you should not try something for 3-4 weeks and give up. Things have been kept consistent for months to show effect. Few good things happen quickly.
