High Nitates, Do I have too may Fish

gusto1

gusto1

New member
Hello Everyone,
My Nitrates have been kinda high 40-60 ppm.
let me list my tank specs and my fish.

150 gallon FOWLR and I also have a lot of different mushrooms that are doing very well even with the high nitrates.
30 gallon sump ( with just some cheato)
aquac ev 180 skimmer
130-150lbs of live rock
only an 1" or so of sand
so basically my only filtration is my protein skimmer and live rock.


Now got the fish, ( I know I might have went a little overboard, I do know someone who broke a tank down and I ended up getting a lot of his fish.
7" sailfin
6" blonde Naso Tang
4" kole tang
5" purple tang ( I know it's a lot of tangs but they really getting along pretty well)
3" Humu Trigger
3" Niger Trigger
5" marine Betta
(2) Regal Angelfish a mated pair ( 1 is 4" and 1 is 3")
2" red margin wrasse
2 foot snowflake eel

I know this sound like a lot but like I said just recently someone broke down a tank and I ended up with the purple tang, the 2 regals and the marine betta..

also if I have get rid of some of the fish what would be the best ones to keep so when they get larger there will still be harmony.

Thanks
 
how often do you do water changes? and if you put multiple fish in too fast your bio filters may not have had time to catch up. that is deff alot of good sized fish for that tank.
 
at the moment, you are not overstocked, but when they get larger, you might run into a few size/territorial problems. you WILL NOT be able to keep all those fish in their at adult size.
My nitrates run from 15ppm to 20ppm regularly (puffers are messy creatures). but what you have seems a lil high, try doing a bunch of quick 10 to 25 percent water changes over the next few weeks, that should lower the ppms a good amount each week. With that many fish, you would need to do water changes once every week to 2 weeks, about 10 to 15%. just my 2 cents.
 
oh and about getting rid of fish i would give up all of those fish just to get a healthy pair of regal angels you are lucky to have them, but if it were my tank i would get rid of the eel, triggers, naso, and either the purple or sailfin they prob wont do well in the long run together. jmo
 
40-60 nitrates isn't that high.... not really..... but if you want to maintain healthy regal angels for any length of time it needs to be down well below 20ppm, and ideally below 10ppm.

Your stocking is a little high, but not disasterously. Cutting down of fish numbers and shipping on anything that you feel you could live without is certainly going to help, ALOT!

Maintenance is probably the key:
Correct and clean feeding methods..... do you wash the food, and is all the food actually eaten.
Not familiar with your skimmer, but it should be a modern design rated for something about 300-400 gals if you are going to pack that many fish into a 150.
LR - I think you are at your limit, more would inhibit fish swimming space.
Water changes - do you do them? How big and how often..... 20% bi-weekly is the absolute minimum needed I would think, using RO water.
Sand - do you think it is "live"..... are there worm trails in it? What type of sand is it? In my view, for sand to be effective in reducing nitrate, and not in fact adding to them, it needs to be 1 to 2" deep, carribsea or similar, WITH life in it........ if its "dead" or if its shallower than that, then in my opinion its just a nutrient sink...... hence, if its live, top it up a bit..... if its not, reduce it....... syphon out a small amount and have a good sniff..... if it smells like the fresh sea, then its doing good..... if it stinks, its probalby doing no good.
Flow - you need good flow in your tank for LR to be effective.

All in all - I think of nitrate levels a a barometer to general water quality....... generally, if nitrates are good, then most other parameters will be in the ball park...... if nitrates are high, then its an indication of an overloaded system...... so you either help the system by good maintenace OR reduce the load..... I consider slow flow and sulphur nitrate filters to be "cheating" personally, in case you are thinking of those.

HTH

Matt
 
42 inches of fish at present size PLUS the eel. Isn't 1 inch of fish for 5 gallons of water the norm. Tangs and Triggers are messy eaters/poopers too. Sounds overstocked to me and they are not full size yet. You have to up your water changes and skimming. Is this a four foot 150? That would be way short for those tangs. I have a Tennetti tang in a four foot 120 and feel kind of bad for it.
 
Thank you everyone for all your responses,
I do weekly water changes about 20 Gallons ( which with the sump volume is about 12%) I feed twice a day (2 cubes each time) I dont wash the food but I let it sit in a cup full of tank water and then strain it before I put it in. also I go through algae sheets like crazy with all the tangs, When I put a full sheet in the tank it's usually gone in a few hours.

my skimmer is rated for 200 Gallons, It works very well but maybe it needs to be upgraded.

sand I have only about an 1" to 2" of of caribsea aragonite, It's live but there are only a few worm trails in it because sometimes I clean it hoping to get rid of some of the fish poops.

as for slowly getting rid of some fish to help, it seems everyone in the family has they're favorite fish, one thing is my eel is huge and eats a ton, sometimes I think just him in the tank alone would cause high nitrates.

Thanks Gus
 
:eek1: I missed the fact there is a 2 foot eel in there!!! OK, I revise my previous statement - I think you are a bit overstocked, and with growth that will become well over stocked.......

Realistically you are looking at 1 of 3 scenarios:
(1) You get a bigger tank in the near future..... something like a 240.

(2) You thin out your stock a bit.

(3) Your system will slowly decline, you'll slowly loose fish for "mysterious" reasons until the stocking comes in line with more typical stocking levels.

Your maintenance would seem good as it..... you can't really do much more. A new skimmer will relieve the pressure for a while but in time (over the next 12-24 months) it will creep up on you again and the inevitible will happen.

Matt
 
I think you're getting a lot of good advice here. Also, because many of the fish you have are very popular, it should be fairly easy to sell many of them, if you decide to go that route instead of getting a bigger tank and skimmer. (You'd probably have some takers just among the people who have contributed to this thread.) The tough thing for you is that with those triggers, the eel, and the marine betta, any cleanup inverts would likely be lunch fairly quickly, which as you stated, makes you completely dependent on your skimmer and live rock.

And what an incredible stroke of luck to have a healthy, mated pair of Regals fall in your lap!
 
Personally, with the benefit of experience, and a preference for an easy life, I would go one of two ways...... get rid of the triggers and the eel, and enjoy the very thing that you have..... a apir of regal angels!!! Either that or ship on the regal angels and one or two others that are lower on the list of favourites, and then you need not be as particular with water quality - that is not to say you can just let it go....... but the regals really need prsitine conditions if they are to survive, let alone thrive...... so if you can't provide what they need, I'd be inclined to make a nice buck and seel them at a premium to someone with a nice big reef tank where they'll thrive :)

Just my thoughts...... not telling you what to do, but that what I'd do.....
 
I've had to ditch fish myself due to buying overload! Now my big fish consist of only 2, the rest are small dudes.

So, I'd get rid of:

2 foot snowflake eel
4" kole tang
5" marine Betta
3" Humu Trigger (more likely than the niger to get mean to the angels though it does have better colors, but let the angels be the stars of the tank)

Leaving:
7" sailfin
6" blonde Naso Tang
5" purple tang ( I know it's a lot of tangs but they really getting along pretty well)
3" Niger Trigger
(2) Regal Angelfish a mated pair ( 1 is 4" and 1 is 3")
2" red margin wrasse
 
I guess I have to figure out what ones to get rid of, the wife loves the Humu trigger ( so I'll tell her to start doing water changes:D) now if I get rid the Humu trigger, the kole tang and the Eel, would that be enough. will I be able to get a clean up crew even if I keep the Niger trigger, he basically keeps to himself and spends most of the day in front of one of the powerheads ( it looks like he is exercising on a treadmill). Will a clean up crew help and I'll make sure not to put any inverts in until I lower my nitrates.

what size water changes should I do over the next few weeks, is 30 gallons at one time too much, or should a do 2 -15 gallons twice a week for a while.
 
I only have an anemone and have been doing 75 gallon changes weekly without issue. So 300 gallons monthly, I need a fuge to really do the work for me. Snails need lower than 20 nitrates from what I've seen, though the cowries are in about 40 right before the change and are still active at night. The niger should leave things alone, the humu will not.

Hope others will add to this, my opinion is only one and is much more drastic than what others will offer.
 
Water changes...... well if you only have fish, and if you are extra careful to ensure the parameters of new water and old are the same, you could do anything up to 50%...... but to be honest, I'd stick with 35% max...... or 1/3....... and still, make sure the new water matches old exactly.

Removing the 3 fish you have listed should make a huge impact - but you won't see results over night....... it will take a while to balance out........

If you take them out, followed by a series of 35% water changes, then up your weekly water changes maybe to 20% and be extra careful feeding, that should goa long way to reducing the average reading..... whther it will be enough is hard to say, but it is a big step in the right direction.

A skimmer upgrade is always going to help..... but I do not know enough about your skimer to make good comment - how would it measure up to deltec skiemrs for example?

clean-up crew 'vs' niger trigger....... its up to the fish.... he may, or may not accept them OR eat them?!?!?!? Its a gamble. Crew will definitely help..... especially something like brittle stars......
 
I have a 20 gallon and a 44 gallon brute. the 20 gallon for water changes and the 44 gallon for ro/di storage, maybe I will change that around. is it alright to put ro/di water in a brute that I've been mixing salt in for years? I'll just clean it out well. I'll be going through a lot of salt

as for feeding I was feeding them 2 larger cubes twice a day ( the saltwater multipack ones which are a little larger then some of the others) plus about 2 sheets a day of algae sheets. also some pellets and some flake is that too much. just the 1 Humu trigger alone would try to eat at least 1 cubes worth each feeding. there was really nothing ever left but it just seemed like a lot but it was always gone., I also tried to make sure each fish eat what they needed, the frozen food for the triggers, pellets and sponges for the angelfish, and algae for the tangs. everybody seem to eat all the different kinds of food except for the Humu he would only eat the frozen food which meant I also had to put some in every feeding.

and again everyone sorry for all the question and thank you for all your input.
 
Given the numbers, sizes, and types of fish you currently have, that really doesn't seem like overfeeding to me. I presume that other than the algae sheets, everything was consumed within a couple of minutes?

I think that keeping cleanup inverts off the menu will still be a gamble if you leave either the niger or the marine betta in there. They certainly might ignore them, but the fact that you will be adding the inverts to "their" tank (rather than the other way around) won't help your chances.

I think switching the trash cans around is a good idea. I use two 44 gallon brutes (one for RO/DI water, one for salt mixing) and it seems to work well.
 
Just wanted to say again that you are doing the right thing, and are genuinely to be commended for going ahead and making the tough choice to sell on some fish......

In the long term, if you can part with the niger trigger too, you will be doing yourself alot of favours.......

As far as cleanup crew...... the betta will go for shrimps and that sort o thing, but snails and stars will be ok....... and thats all you "need" really.

Once you reduce stock, if you do say 4no. 35% water changes, every other day for a week (4 changes) you should manage to get nitrate down to about 10-20ppm...... and after that, keep up the changes regular weekly changes.... 25% would be a good idea ....... you'll find a balance, and hopefully be able to cut that back to much less..........

Meanwhile, look into DSB's etc. It might be for you...... personally I'm not into DSB's but they do work, and if its for you, it could work well for you and allow you to do bi-weekly 20% changes maybe........

HTH

Matt
 
I think you are overstocked....but you don't need me to tell you what you already know...............................sooo you can just drop those Regals in a bag and I will send you my address! My 190 gallon is understocked. I have a 5 inch Majestic, and a 4 inch Scribbled, a fairy wrasse, two clowns and a royal gramma. Got a 7 inch Regal in a 30 gallon rubbermaid because I have had her for over two weeks and she won't touch any food offered and I have tried everything. Lesley
 
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