I feed several times a day, BB's for pipes and Pygmys, PE mysis enriched with vibrance for the horses. My nitrates were stable for months. It was suggested I swap out my Bioballs for rubble over a few week period and it seems to have raised my nitrates from 15 to almost 40 in a week or so. I've done two water changes and added more rubble and caleurpa, but it doesn't seem to be working very well. knocked it down some, but not enough. I think that the nitrates are why I lost some of the babies. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Jen
High Nitrates
- Thread starter Whylde
- Start date
seas_inside
New member
I think this problem can be easily fixed with adding some chaetomorpha. It lovves the nitrates. Others with chaeto have said their 'trates are at zero. So, I recommend you get some.
pledosophy
Active member
The raise in nitrates after removing your bioballs and replacing with liverock is a coincidence. Bioballs do not help with denitrifiaction. Anerobic bacteria is what converts the nitrates into gas and then expells it from the system. Bioballs do not support anaerobic bacteria. Replacing the bioballs with rubble rock allows for the anerobic bacteria to be present in the liverock which will help to lower your nitrates.
The death of your fry was not caused by the nitrates. Nitrates of 40 are not high enough IME to cause deaths. More then likely the deaths of your dwarf fry were caused by other elements in your tank. Succsessful breeders usuaaly raise fry in a seperate system, one that can be setup to eliminate things like hydroids. Hydroids will not harm lareger horses but are deadly to fry.
I know that you have seen many people raise dwarf fry in there dwarf tank, but you don't have a typical dwarf tank. Your dwarf tank is also your larger horse tank and many elements that work with larger horses are not condusive to dwarf fry, or larger seahorse fry.
IMO the best option you are going to have to raise the dwarf fry is to put them into a different system, one that is setup by more traditional dwarf standards. Perhaps a 5g with plastic hitches. YOu can use a filter as long as you protect the input with a type of sponge or other means to avoid sucking up the dwarfs. Liverock can be used but it must be treated for hydroids. Hydroid free liverock is sold by Seawaterexpress.com or you can treat traditional liverock with pancur. If you choose the pancur route know that this rock needs to stay in the dwarf tank. Mixing rock that has been treated with panacur even years later will cause the deaths of all inverts in the system. Do not use pancur on your display, but if you are setting up a nursery tank, many have found it useful. Obviously that is not the complete anwser, but it will give you a start on where to begin reading. There are many different ways to breed fry, you'll have to find the one that workds for you.
As far as fixing your nitrates, if you'll give a description of your system we can find which of the mehods will work best for your situation. Here are the questions I have:
Tank size?
Filters used, make, model, media used?
Protein skimmer?
Is the macro in an external refugium, or inside the system?
What species of macro are you working with?
What is your complete list of tank inhabitants?
IME you really need to get this in check now before nuissance algaes follow.
HTH
Good Luck.
The death of your fry was not caused by the nitrates. Nitrates of 40 are not high enough IME to cause deaths. More then likely the deaths of your dwarf fry were caused by other elements in your tank. Succsessful breeders usuaaly raise fry in a seperate system, one that can be setup to eliminate things like hydroids. Hydroids will not harm lareger horses but are deadly to fry.
I know that you have seen many people raise dwarf fry in there dwarf tank, but you don't have a typical dwarf tank. Your dwarf tank is also your larger horse tank and many elements that work with larger horses are not condusive to dwarf fry, or larger seahorse fry.
IMO the best option you are going to have to raise the dwarf fry is to put them into a different system, one that is setup by more traditional dwarf standards. Perhaps a 5g with plastic hitches. YOu can use a filter as long as you protect the input with a type of sponge or other means to avoid sucking up the dwarfs. Liverock can be used but it must be treated for hydroids. Hydroid free liverock is sold by Seawaterexpress.com or you can treat traditional liverock with pancur. If you choose the pancur route know that this rock needs to stay in the dwarf tank. Mixing rock that has been treated with panacur even years later will cause the deaths of all inverts in the system. Do not use pancur on your display, but if you are setting up a nursery tank, many have found it useful. Obviously that is not the complete anwser, but it will give you a start on where to begin reading. There are many different ways to breed fry, you'll have to find the one that workds for you.
As far as fixing your nitrates, if you'll give a description of your system we can find which of the mehods will work best for your situation. Here are the questions I have:
Tank size?
Filters used, make, model, media used?
Protein skimmer?
Is the macro in an external refugium, or inside the system?
What species of macro are you working with?
What is your complete list of tank inhabitants?
IME you really need to get this in check now before nuissance algaes follow.
HTH
Good Luck.
pledosophy is bang on. We need details.
15 ppm is already high for nitrates and suggests that your system was already having trouble handling your current bioload. It is possible that something like a small increase in food quantities could lead to a rapid rise in nitrates
Adding caulerpa and rock rubble is good, but they won't instantly suck up all your nitrates. The rock may well need a period of time to develop sufficient bacterial populations to effectively process your nitrates. It really depends where the rock came from and what the ongoing nitrate load was in that system.
By the way, how long has this tank been set up for?
Fred
15 ppm is already high for nitrates and suggests that your system was already having trouble handling your current bioload. It is possible that something like a small increase in food quantities could lead to a rapid rise in nitrates
Adding caulerpa and rock rubble is good, but they won't instantly suck up all your nitrates. The rock may well need a period of time to develop sufficient bacterial populations to effectively process your nitrates. It really depends where the rock came from and what the ongoing nitrate load was in that system.
By the way, how long has this tank been set up for?
Fred
Wow! Thanks for all the advice and information. In regard to the babies, they are in a small floating tank inside the larger one. The large tank is a 65 gallon Seaclear II with the integrated filtration sump in the back. It has holes all along the bottom with water coming into the tank from the back. I have a prizm skimmer, live rock and algae both in the tank and the back. Not exactly sure the type of algae. The newly added to the back is tightly curled and dense like a scrub pad. The others are grape caleurpa and some long wide flowing variety.
As for inhabitants, One male Reidi, Five Erectus, Six adult Pygmies and four babies. Two banded pipes, one blueline and one green. One Mandarin Goby, one twinspot goby.
My Cleanup, two sand sifting starfish, one seahare, one Berghia Nudibranch, One red Bali star. about five Nassarius snails, ten margarita snails, five blue leg hermits and one santa fe star.
Whew! I think that's it.
I do frequent water changes, use Sea-lab Formula #28, and #14ph. Use bought salt and RODI water.
I use a sponge fiter on my single powerhead intake, which I chane about every other day.
Ta Da!
Let's hit it! Time to learn.
As for inhabitants, One male Reidi, Five Erectus, Six adult Pygmies and four babies. Two banded pipes, one blueline and one green. One Mandarin Goby, one twinspot goby.
My Cleanup, two sand sifting starfish, one seahare, one Berghia Nudibranch, One red Bali star. about five Nassarius snails, ten margarita snails, five blue leg hermits and one santa fe star.
Whew! I think that's it.
I do frequent water changes, use Sea-lab Formula #28, and #14ph. Use bought salt and RODI water.
I use a sponge fiter on my single powerhead intake, which I chane about every other day.
Ta Da!
Let's hit it! Time to learn.
pledosophy
Active member
So, you have 28 fish in your tank 65g tank contributing to your bioload and your wondering why you have nitrate problems. :lol:
C'mon you knew that was coming. Your bioload is pretty high. That is not even factoring in the amount of bbs you are feeding to keep those 10 dwarfs around.
The babies floating in the tank will expose them to the same water that is in the tank, and will cause there death. Sorry, it's just a really hard thing to do. Fred has raised a fry or two I believe in his caulphera forest, however his odds were a bit easier. In your case if the fry were not in a seperate containers, the 4 pipefish, hermit crabs, twinspot, and possibly even the manderin would eat them IME.
Do you still have the 10 Margarita snails? Or do there seem to be less now. Margarita's are actually temperate snails that come from extremely cold waters, they do not live long in our system. Somewhere on this site Shimek wrote a paper on snails detailing how the margarita's come from like 1000 feet below sealevel or something ridiculous like that. Anyway the point is they will not last long, and will need to be replaced with a tropical snail soon to avoid debris build up.
4 Starfish in a 65 is also kinda leary IMO. JMO Maybe with your feeding schedule you'll fair better then most. Maybe.
So am I correct that you are only running biological filtration, and a protein skimmer? There is no type of mechanical filtration other then the protein skimmer. The Seaclear filter is like a sump built in to the back of the tank, similiar to a HOB refugium correct?
If it were me I'd be looking at a seriously large mechanical filtration device. I'd go with a Fluval 405 min IMO. You can use filter media like phosban, chemipure, and seachem's denitrate to help control your nitrate problem, and future alage problem that will shortly follow. I have read that Eheims, and magnums are also good cannisters, but I have no experience with them myself.
I am not sure how the Seaclear attached filtration is designed, but you could try putting media in bags in there if a filter is not an option.
Running the different algaes chaeto morpha (the scrubby pad one), green grape (unless it is red then it is slow growing and not to much good), and the long wide flowy algae (might be prolifera, try to look up that one, perhaps racimosa, but I'm betting prolifera, just a hunch) are all helpful. However it is not an end all. The chaeto will be a good home for pods, but IME is not that effective at reducing nitrates. The other two are better since they are faster growing, but IME green grape can be volatile if not kept under 24/7 lighting. Again not sure how your attached sump filter works out. IMO if you can't light the green grape 24/7 without disrupting the light cycle of the display, then I would ditch it completely. Watch the growth rate of the chaeto back there. If it gets to big it can clog your return and you'll come home drunk to find an angry landlord and a whole lot of water on your floor and dripping from the neighbors ceiling. Ask me how I know. I live on the first floor now.
If you can add about 4" or a bit more of sand into the refugium chamber of your sump thing a ma bobber I would do that as well. It is an easy aid. It won't work right away but in the long run that little portion of DSB will grow even more anaerobic bacteria to help with denitrification. Your going to need as much as you can get if your system is going to stay as it is.
You might want to look into dosing vodka to your system. It is something that many people are leary of but give it a chance and read about it a bit. I like to use Kettle One and dose a couple of mL directly into my skimmer. I know it sounds like a snake oil but the anerobic bacteria which convert nitrates into gas seem to be able to use the vodka to aid in there reproduction. Under normal circumstances anerobes grow painfully slow.
Another thing we should talk about is flow. In your 65g how much GPH do you have? Is there movement through the rocks, any spots of no flow or very little flow?
I know the conditions that dwarfs need to be happy require very low flow, however having no flow in spots in the tank will create an area for things to collect, decay, and cause nitrate and algae problems. I would check to make sure there is adaquete flow through your rock work. When I was running my 65g I had 1300gph through my system. The flow was broken up a tremendous amount, but there was no spot where lack of flow created piles where detritus could build up. Just saying, if it's building up it's going to show in your levels.
I know I poked ya a few times about keeping dwarfs in that tank, but I just have to point out that a few dwarf keepers have reported deaths from the hermits you have in your system. FWIW.
later we can talk about upgrading your skimmer. I have never used the one you have but it has a poor reputation. Maybe it's just a bad rep though. how is it working for you. how much and what color skimate are you pulling out?
Hope that helps.
Good Luck.
C'mon you knew that was coming. Your bioload is pretty high. That is not even factoring in the amount of bbs you are feeding to keep those 10 dwarfs around.
The babies floating in the tank will expose them to the same water that is in the tank, and will cause there death. Sorry, it's just a really hard thing to do. Fred has raised a fry or two I believe in his caulphera forest, however his odds were a bit easier. In your case if the fry were not in a seperate containers, the 4 pipefish, hermit crabs, twinspot, and possibly even the manderin would eat them IME.
Do you still have the 10 Margarita snails? Or do there seem to be less now. Margarita's are actually temperate snails that come from extremely cold waters, they do not live long in our system. Somewhere on this site Shimek wrote a paper on snails detailing how the margarita's come from like 1000 feet below sealevel or something ridiculous like that. Anyway the point is they will not last long, and will need to be replaced with a tropical snail soon to avoid debris build up.
4 Starfish in a 65 is also kinda leary IMO. JMO Maybe with your feeding schedule you'll fair better then most. Maybe.
So am I correct that you are only running biological filtration, and a protein skimmer? There is no type of mechanical filtration other then the protein skimmer. The Seaclear filter is like a sump built in to the back of the tank, similiar to a HOB refugium correct?
If it were me I'd be looking at a seriously large mechanical filtration device. I'd go with a Fluval 405 min IMO. You can use filter media like phosban, chemipure, and seachem's denitrate to help control your nitrate problem, and future alage problem that will shortly follow. I have read that Eheims, and magnums are also good cannisters, but I have no experience with them myself.
I am not sure how the Seaclear attached filtration is designed, but you could try putting media in bags in there if a filter is not an option.
Running the different algaes chaeto morpha (the scrubby pad one), green grape (unless it is red then it is slow growing and not to much good), and the long wide flowy algae (might be prolifera, try to look up that one, perhaps racimosa, but I'm betting prolifera, just a hunch) are all helpful. However it is not an end all. The chaeto will be a good home for pods, but IME is not that effective at reducing nitrates. The other two are better since they are faster growing, but IME green grape can be volatile if not kept under 24/7 lighting. Again not sure how your attached sump filter works out. IMO if you can't light the green grape 24/7 without disrupting the light cycle of the display, then I would ditch it completely. Watch the growth rate of the chaeto back there. If it gets to big it can clog your return and you'll come home drunk to find an angry landlord and a whole lot of water on your floor and dripping from the neighbors ceiling. Ask me how I know. I live on the first floor now.
If you can add about 4" or a bit more of sand into the refugium chamber of your sump thing a ma bobber I would do that as well. It is an easy aid. It won't work right away but in the long run that little portion of DSB will grow even more anaerobic bacteria to help with denitrification. Your going to need as much as you can get if your system is going to stay as it is.
You might want to look into dosing vodka to your system. It is something that many people are leary of but give it a chance and read about it a bit. I like to use Kettle One and dose a couple of mL directly into my skimmer. I know it sounds like a snake oil but the anerobic bacteria which convert nitrates into gas seem to be able to use the vodka to aid in there reproduction. Under normal circumstances anerobes grow painfully slow.
Another thing we should talk about is flow. In your 65g how much GPH do you have? Is there movement through the rocks, any spots of no flow or very little flow?
I know the conditions that dwarfs need to be happy require very low flow, however having no flow in spots in the tank will create an area for things to collect, decay, and cause nitrate and algae problems. I would check to make sure there is adaquete flow through your rock work. When I was running my 65g I had 1300gph through my system. The flow was broken up a tremendous amount, but there was no spot where lack of flow created piles where detritus could build up. Just saying, if it's building up it's going to show in your levels.
I know I poked ya a few times about keeping dwarfs in that tank, but I just have to point out that a few dwarf keepers have reported deaths from the hermits you have in your system. FWIW.
later we can talk about upgrading your skimmer. I have never used the one you have but it has a poor reputation. Maybe it's just a bad rep though. how is it working for you. how much and what color skimate are you pulling out?
Hope that helps.
Good Luck.
I'm going to go in a different direction than pledosophy.
I think that this is the primary issue for you. Thats 3 months and is barely enough time for even an unstocked or lightly stocked tank to cycle.
Add to this a heavy bioload and you get high nitrates (and probably phosphates). You need to give bacterial and algae populations time to catch up to the bioload. You are probably looking at another 4-6 months for things to mature properly. FWIW, in my tank, it took a good 8 months before the macro algae in my tank really took off. In theory, macros like caulerpa should start to grow right away. My experience was different.
You say you do frequent water changes, but you don't mention how often or how much. I am guessing its probably weekly?? The amount is important. For instance, two gallons a week will do little to remove nitrates.
With your nitrates being so high I would do one or two 50% changes to get the nitrates down below 10-15. From there continue to do 10-20% water changes to keep your nitrates down until the macros and bacteria kick in. If this dosn't work and you continue to see your nitrates rise, there is something else going on.
I am not a fan of mechanical filtration (I'm not good on regular maintenance), but it you add more, make sure to keep cleaning it frequently the way you do your current sponge filter.
I,m going to disagree with Pledo on 7/24 lighting for macro algae. All it does is slow down algae growth. Algae need a dark cycle. It won't work in your situation anyway because the algae is in the main display.
You mention that you have two sand sifting stars. Does this mean you have a sandbed as well?
OK, on to the cleanup crew. What you want, more than anything, for cleanup crew is critters that feed on detritus or micro algae.
Sand sifting stars are actually carnavours that feed on the little critters in your sandbed rather than detritovours. Hermit crabs are omnivours and will eat detritus and algae, but really prefer meaty stuff. Most starfish feed on the invertibrate life living on the coral substrait and will not live long in our tanks because of a lack of food.
If you want to keep a starfish, go with a brittle/serpent star, They are mostly detritovours and may clean up uneaten food. The only brittle star to avoid is the large olive green one (don't remember the latin name). They are a known fish eater. The common grey ones seem to be the best detritovours.
That seahare is a voraciuos eater of algae and will single handedly keep your entire tank clean. The ones we see in the hobby do tend to get very big over time though (think football size).
Back to the sand sifting stars. The best processors of detritus in our tanks, and animals critical to the proper function of our tanks are, yup, those little critters your sand sifting stars are eating.
Sandbeds work because a LOT of tiny bacteria grow on evey available sand surface and can process a lot of nutrients. Now, those nutrients need to get down into the sand somehow, and they need to be sufficiently small particles/molecules for the bacteria to efficiently break them down.
This is where those small critters come in. They take relatively big chunks of organic material sitting on the surface of the sand, consume it, partially breaking it down, and deposit the resulting poop in the sandbed. Other critters consume that poop, further breaking it down and depositing it lower in the sandbed. These critters perform two fucntions for the sandbed: they bring nutrients deep into the bed where they can be consumed by bacteria, they break organics down to a small enough size for bacteria to efficiently consume them.
So, IF you have a sandbed chances are it is not very effective because: 1) there are no critters to work nutrients into the sanbed, 2) it has not had enough time for the right bacterial communities to establish themselves.
By the way, if you want something to clean the upper layer of sand, you can use a sand sifting cuke. These guys feed on the bacterial films on the sand grains rather than on the critters in the sandbed.
If you don't have a sandbed I hope it was at least interesting reading
To sumarize:
1. you need time for your tank to properly cycle and mature
2. keep doing water changes to bring the nitrates down
3. upgrade your cleanup crew a little to get better detrirovours in there.
4. have patience, it will take time.
Between pledo and myself, I hope we havn't overloaded you with info. Keep asking questions if you have them.
Fred.
I think that this is the primary issue for you. Thats 3 months and is barely enough time for even an unstocked or lightly stocked tank to cycle.
Add to this a heavy bioload and you get high nitrates (and probably phosphates). You need to give bacterial and algae populations time to catch up to the bioload. You are probably looking at another 4-6 months for things to mature properly. FWIW, in my tank, it took a good 8 months before the macro algae in my tank really took off. In theory, macros like caulerpa should start to grow right away. My experience was different.
You say you do frequent water changes, but you don't mention how often or how much. I am guessing its probably weekly?? The amount is important. For instance, two gallons a week will do little to remove nitrates.
With your nitrates being so high I would do one or two 50% changes to get the nitrates down below 10-15. From there continue to do 10-20% water changes to keep your nitrates down until the macros and bacteria kick in. If this dosn't work and you continue to see your nitrates rise, there is something else going on.
I am not a fan of mechanical filtration (I'm not good on regular maintenance), but it you add more, make sure to keep cleaning it frequently the way you do your current sponge filter.
I,m going to disagree with Pledo on 7/24 lighting for macro algae. All it does is slow down algae growth. Algae need a dark cycle. It won't work in your situation anyway because the algae is in the main display.
You mention that you have two sand sifting stars. Does this mean you have a sandbed as well?
OK, on to the cleanup crew. What you want, more than anything, for cleanup crew is critters that feed on detritus or micro algae.
Sand sifting stars are actually carnavours that feed on the little critters in your sandbed rather than detritovours. Hermit crabs are omnivours and will eat detritus and algae, but really prefer meaty stuff. Most starfish feed on the invertibrate life living on the coral substrait and will not live long in our tanks because of a lack of food.
If you want to keep a starfish, go with a brittle/serpent star, They are mostly detritovours and may clean up uneaten food. The only brittle star to avoid is the large olive green one (don't remember the latin name). They are a known fish eater. The common grey ones seem to be the best detritovours.
That seahare is a voraciuos eater of algae and will single handedly keep your entire tank clean. The ones we see in the hobby do tend to get very big over time though (think football size).
Back to the sand sifting stars. The best processors of detritus in our tanks, and animals critical to the proper function of our tanks are, yup, those little critters your sand sifting stars are eating.
Sandbeds work because a LOT of tiny bacteria grow on evey available sand surface and can process a lot of nutrients. Now, those nutrients need to get down into the sand somehow, and they need to be sufficiently small particles/molecules for the bacteria to efficiently break them down.
This is where those small critters come in. They take relatively big chunks of organic material sitting on the surface of the sand, consume it, partially breaking it down, and deposit the resulting poop in the sandbed. Other critters consume that poop, further breaking it down and depositing it lower in the sandbed. These critters perform two fucntions for the sandbed: they bring nutrients deep into the bed where they can be consumed by bacteria, they break organics down to a small enough size for bacteria to efficiently consume them.
So, IF you have a sandbed chances are it is not very effective because: 1) there are no critters to work nutrients into the sanbed, 2) it has not had enough time for the right bacterial communities to establish themselves.
By the way, if you want something to clean the upper layer of sand, you can use a sand sifting cuke. These guys feed on the bacterial films on the sand grains rather than on the critters in the sandbed.
If you don't have a sandbed I hope it was at least interesting reading
To sumarize:
1. you need time for your tank to properly cycle and mature
2. keep doing water changes to bring the nitrates down
3. upgrade your cleanup crew a little to get better detrirovours in there.
4. have patience, it will take time.
Between pledo and myself, I hope we havn't overloaded you with info. Keep asking questions if you have them.
Fred.
Overload sounds a bit right.......lol, however, very informative. It's amazing how every person I talk to has a different answer. You both however seem to be very educated on every aspect of this rollercoaster ride. I've asked in the past about the load on my tank, and have been told that seahorses don't have as much of an impact as fish, so I (supposedly, didn't have too much of a load.
I'm going to take your advice and let the tank mature before I do anything else. I lost my gorgeous Reidi male today.Both from the pair in the last two weeks, her from some unknown malady I thought I'd cured, and he stopped eating with her demise.
I was warned, but they were so gorgeous I took a chance with wild caught. I would like to warn everyone in detailed terms, DO NOT buy wild caught no matter how gorgeous they are. I was spending probably $30 a week on ghost shrimp, and he just wouldn't eat after she died. I thought he was eating some of the smaller goodies I put in, and seemed fine, but.....I've seen them in several of the local lfs's and they just don't look well.
Anyway, I do have a sand bed, haven't got the skimmer to really do squat. I did a 10 gallon water change Friday and a 15 gallon one Tuesday. Planning another 10 tonight.
Fred, great pictures in your album, English, or do they say Bang on in Canada? lol.
Btw, in Texas July through December is 6 months,
I'm going to take your advice and let the tank mature before I do anything else. I lost my gorgeous Reidi male today.Both from the pair in the last two weeks, her from some unknown malady I thought I'd cured, and he stopped eating with her demise.
I was warned, but they were so gorgeous I took a chance with wild caught. I would like to warn everyone in detailed terms, DO NOT buy wild caught no matter how gorgeous they are. I was spending probably $30 a week on ghost shrimp, and he just wouldn't eat after she died. I thought he was eating some of the smaller goodies I put in, and seemed fine, but.....I've seen them in several of the local lfs's and they just don't look well.
Anyway, I do have a sand bed, haven't got the skimmer to really do squat. I did a 10 gallon water change Friday and a 15 gallon one Tuesday. Planning another 10 tonight.
Fred, great pictures in your album, English, or do they say Bang on in Canada? lol.
Btw, in Texas July through December is 6 months,
:lol: I even counted my fingers twice! I really need a vacation.
At 6 months your tank should be done with all the initial cycling. Over the next six months you should see more stability in the tank as long as you don't make changes.
Spot on would be English, but then I watched a lot of brittish sitcoms in the 80s so maybe bang on is a brittish thing to.
Sorry to hear you lost your male reidi.
As for the conflicting advice, the internet is a fantastic tool of communication, but it really is like a firehose some days.
Everything I have read, including the scientific litterature, says that horses have an inefficient digestive system. It is supposed to be because they have no stomach. I got curious one night and spent a lot of time searching for some primary research to back this up and found nothing so who knows. I figure they are at least as dirty as any other fish, maybe more so.
Does your algae grow enough that you need to pull some and throw it out? We dump food into our tanks every day so we need some way to remove nutrients as well, otherwise you get a build up and sooner or later it overwhelms your system. If your skimmer dosn't do much, you need some other export mechanism like algae that you harvest regularly.
Fred
Well, throwing the algae in the back isn't a bad think as long as it is alive and growing. All that algae biomass is nitrates, phosphates and carbon sucked up from your tank and locked away.
A picture is worth a thousand words. Looking at your tank, thats not a lot of macro to suck up nutrients. I can't see how much algae there is in the filtration sump. If you looked at my picture gallery, you saw the pic of the sump full of algae. The more you have, the more nutrients it will be able to suck up. It is a fine ballance and I admit I went a little overboard on the macro for a while though.
I don't really know how much macro is enough for your tank, but I would aim for at least 10 gallons worth.
The other option is, of course, to get a more powerful skimmer.
My horses are H. fuscus. Took me a while to ID them because the look much like H kuda and a couple of other species.
Fred
A picture is worth a thousand words. Looking at your tank, thats not a lot of macro to suck up nutrients. I can't see how much algae there is in the filtration sump. If you looked at my picture gallery, you saw the pic of the sump full of algae. The more you have, the more nutrients it will be able to suck up. It is a fine ballance and I admit I went a little overboard on the macro for a while though.
I don't really know how much macro is enough for your tank, but I would aim for at least 10 gallons worth.
The other option is, of course, to get a more powerful skimmer.
My horses are H. fuscus. Took me a while to ID them because the look much like H kuda and a couple of other species.
Fred
