davidwillis
Active member
I am going to give it a try. I have 3 buckets ready to go for my 300 gallon tank. It has always struggled with high nitrates. The only way to keep them between 10-20 is daily water changes, running an ATS, and biopellets. I have been fighting dinos for the last year, and I have removed the ats, biopellets, and am not doing water changes (at least not regular water changes). Nitrates are between 30-40. So I am adding the 3 buckets of sand to see how it works.
I also plan on cleaning one each year, so they will each get cleaned every 3 years. I am not sure that is needed, as it seems there are different opinions on that. But I will be running all water going into the buckets through a 5 micron filter. Because of the filter, it may slow down at times before changes, but the flow should stay between 50 and 150 gph. I know that is slower than some suggest in order to keep particles from settling, but since I am filtering down to 5 microns, there should not be anything to settle. I am sure nitrates won't be consumed that fast, so I don't really se why the flow needs to be any faster, and if I do go faster, it will just clog up my pre filter faster.
Nitrates tested today: 31.4 using a hanna checker.
Po4 is between 0.1 and 0.25 using a salifert test kit (hanna does not work due to silicates used to help get dinos under control). I will be reducing po4 more using Lanthanum Chloride before the 5 micron filter.
I also plan on cleaning one each year, so they will each get cleaned every 3 years. I am not sure that is needed, as it seems there are different opinions on that. But I will be running all water going into the buckets through a 5 micron filter. Because of the filter, it may slow down at times before changes, but the flow should stay between 50 and 150 gph. I know that is slower than some suggest in order to keep particles from settling, but since I am filtering down to 5 microns, there should not be anything to settle. I am sure nitrates won't be consumed that fast, so I don't really se why the flow needs to be any faster, and if I do go faster, it will just clog up my pre filter faster.
Nitrates tested today: 31.4 using a hanna checker.
Po4 is between 0.1 and 0.25 using a salifert test kit (hanna does not work due to silicates used to help get dinos under control). I will be reducing po4 more using Lanthanum Chloride before the 5 micron filter.