Detritus causing high nitrates from refugium?

[Vadafallon]

I have high nitrates and i cannot get them down. I used NoPox and all it did was cause a massive algae bloom. So i was thinking maybe its from the refugium. Just so you know its a 60 gallon tank and a 24 gallon sump/refug. So i thought maybe i could do a few things.

1) add a small power head to the refug section
2)take some of the live rock out to give it more flow
3) suck out the sand, i have a about a inch or two in there and run it bare with just some pieces of rock

Thoughts? I have Chaeto down there already.

 

[Swensos]

When you do water changes, you can vacuum the sand. If you're feeding a lot, you need to remove the extra nutrients with water changes, growth and removal of algae like chaeto, or a protein skimmer. Feeding smaller amounts may also help.

 

[Vadafallon]

Yeah i skim and all that, also have GFO and Carbon. I think the issue is the refug. Maybe i should get a wet vac and suck it all out. The only thing i worry about is sucking up all my pods. My Mandarin and scooter blenny would not be pleased with me. I am doing 15% water changes a week, maybe that will help some.

 

[atraperegrinus]

Yeah i skim and all that, also have GFO and Carbon. I think the issue is the refug. Maybe i should get a wet vac and suck it all out. The only thing i worry about is sucking up all my pods. My Mandarin and scooter blenny would not be pleased with me. I am doing 15% water changes a week, maybe that will help some.

if your nitrates are so high, it might be a good idea to bump up to a higher % water change.

gotta think, every water change you're only taking out 15% of your nitrates, it would take alot of 15% changes to make a large dent in a bad nitrate issue.

when i had nitrates up in the 60s-80s i was doing 20-25% water changes once a week, if not every 5 days, until i was at a good spot. I also figured out alot of my nitrates were coming from my sandbed so vacuuming that helped them from coming back up high again.

goodluck!

 

[CStrickland]

There's a few ways your system can get out of balance with nitrogen, more is going in than is getting taken out. When that happens it shows up on our nitrate tests. Either too much food added or not enough leftover food and poop removed. If your sump is the source then you might want to change it up.

- what is your nitrate level?
- what is your maintenance schedule? Are your water changes just swapping out water or are you cleaning the rocks and sand to get the poop out too?
- what type of filtration are you using? Do any parts of your system collect poop and hold it in the water like filter floss or bioballs or filter socks?
- do you have a gravelly substrate like crushed coral?
- how much rock do you have in the tank?

 

[chimmike]

what is it makes you think the refugium is the problem? Do you want to change it out and are just using this as a reason to do so?

 

[cloak]

A lot of the refugiums I see look absolutely filthy. It wouldn't surprise me if the algae is growing because of this. (cancelling itself out) If your making an effort to clean the DT at all, you might as well just loose the refugium altogether and keep your sump bare/clean too IMO. GL

 

[Vadafallon]

I can actually see all the detritus in there. I stuck a power head in there earlier and put a filter sock in the sump and omg so much stuff was blown into my tank. So i am going to take this course of action. I am going do another 10 gallon water change.. i did 10 yesterday. I am going to turn off the return pump, still the power head back into the sump to stir it up some more. Take 10 gallons out, and add 10 gallons of fresh back in. Maybe when i do another 25% next week i will do the same thing. Also running carbon and gfo.

 

[Vadafallon]

Also i have added a nano pump to the refug which i will leave in there to hopefully keep the flow a little higher. i might take out a rock or two as well. All the ones i have in there are fist sized and i worry this could be the cause of the detritus trap.

 

[jrr98002]

IME I'd also agree with the rest you're getting detritus trapped in your fuge. Typically your flow through your fuge isn't as high as what you've got going on in your DT and especially if you have rocks in your fuge versus just sand and chaeto, there's lots of little nooks and crannies for crap to get caught up in. If you don't want to dump the fuge idea completely, some more/better mechanical filtration from your drain into your sump will help, although you'll have to be diligent in making sure junk doesn't build up in your socks or whatever you use.

 

[eddiebie]

ahouls things be growing in my sump?

ahouls things be growing in my sump?

I had a relocate tank 125 gal. and bad shape. I did not want to do anything drastic after the re-location. But all kinds of algae and things growing in sump. Should I clean it out and scrub all down? Hi nitrates weekly. Please help:twitch:

 

[Vadafallon]

After i just could not get rid of all the slime algae i was dealing, i replaced all the subtrate in my tank and took all the sand out of my tank. I took all the rock out and scrub it down, shook all the loose junk out of them and did the same for the rock in the refug. Now in the refug i only have chaeto and rock, no sand. Its nice and clean and i am going to run some test today or tomorrow and see where we are at. I also did a nice size water change. Oh also i have some more clean up crew coming and i am going to cut back to feeding once a day for the fish.

 

[NS Mike D]

I removed the sand from my fuge over the same concerns. I left some small rubble rocks for the pods and I upped the lighting period so that my cheato is a solid wall to wall brick that I have to cut back every week.

I also vacuum about 30% of the top of the sand bed when I do water changes and blow off the detritus off the rocks every few days. I use the Julius thing to spot feed my coral, so it's just a few more seconds to use it to clean the rocks as well as blow out any left over food in the syringe.

fwiw, I switched to bio pellets in my reactor as my source of carbon and saw my Nitrates and Phosphates drop considerably.


I'm down to 0.25 NO3 and 0.08 PO4 after a long battle with red slime.