I'm having some trouble keeping nitrates down. I have a 55 gallon mixed reef 30 gal refugium reef octopus skimmer I use a 2x150 mh sunpod. My live stock is pair of clowns lawnmower blenny , star blenny , sandshifting goby and mandarin goby. I do 20% water change every week. I have brs dual reactor gfo and carbon. I feed my fish every other day a combo of flakes and brine shrimp. The nitrates just seem to creep up every week now they are at 40 ppm and thery were at 10 last week.
I'm having trouble with nitrates need some reducing it
- Thread starter Hendogg0
- Start date
insomniac2k2
Active member
If your like me, you overfeed your tank. If you dont want to change that behavior, you may want to consider carbon dosing.
You may also want to post your tank parameters a little more for others to read. sand volume, LR, etc
You may also want to post your tank parameters a little more for others to read. sand volume, LR, etc
sporto0
New member
I have a couple of questions, do you have any form of macro algae in your refugium? & how much live rock is in your tank? A quick fix would include doubling the frequency of water changes or do 40% for a while. It's really hard to tell what's the source of your problem since you seem to have all proper equiptment to keep nitrates & phosphates low. I don't know how much you feed, but every other day seems reasonable, unless the amount is excessive.
Guess I just forgot to mention a couple other things I do have chateo and 3 mangroves in my refugium I have a 3 1/2 inch sand bed and have 50lbs of live rock. I did look into over feeding in give them a pinch of flakes. The other thing I did do was reduce my bio load and got rid of 2 Tangs I had. A 3 in yellow and 31/2 blue gave them away about a month ago
sporto0
New member
I would continue to do more frequent WC & maintain any equiptment, sponges etc. that may need cleaning, & your nitrate levels should reduce. It sounds like you are doing everything right, also every month, I would trim my cheato down, kinda like getting a hair cut, it gets rid of phosphates & nitrates by removing some cheato from your refugium.
insomniac2k2
Active member
As stated before. Do you have any sponges in your sump? If so, you may want to clean that area out and sponge as well.
insomniac2k2
Active member
I know that a ton of people use socks, but I am not fond of them. Also a nitrate factory if you are not good about changing them. I would NEVER be good about changing them, so i had to design my sump to work well without them.
From what you posted, this is likely not your issue, but just a thought..
From what you posted, this is likely not your issue, but just a thought..
saltyclown
New member
How often do you have to clean your skimmer? Are you running it withmore of a wet skim or a dryer skim? How much brine are you adding? From the sounds of it you probably only need to feed about a dime sized chunk for the livestock you have....
How long has the tank been established?
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How long has the tank been established?
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insomniac2k2
Active member
I'll let the filter sock guys chime in on this one. To me that seems like its not frequent enough.
Postal
Active member
Filter socks should be changed daily or at least every other day. Otherwise, what the socks collect is just breaking down and releasing nutrients into the water.
surferboi2113
New member
i had a problem with nitrates and it resulted in too many dead spots in my tank. i increased the flow and took out/ rescaped the live rock to eliminate most of the dead spots, especially behind the rock. never had a problem since.
