is my tanks bioload really overdone?

Thanks Randy, I found that on Ebay, $16 for 21 mangroves shipped. Any one in the Des Moines area want to split an order, I can't use 21 I don't think.

Jerry what about you? I need to get back over to see your tank anyway.

By the way Randy - the eel and crab are doing great.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10596882#post10596882 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by SnkyJake
This may sound retarded, but when my nitrates start moving up, I thin out the cheto in my refugium (along with water change). My thinking is that the cheto gets "hungry" because it has more space to grow, and is trying to replace what I just took out. So it goes back into a growth mode, and invariably my nitrates start falling again... unless I'm a complete moron (wouldn't be the first time :rolleyes: ) and my thick cheto is actually part of the nitrate problem??
Click to expand...

Same logic I use, my chaeto gets thinned out about once a month, any hair algae tryign to take off is nearly immediately stopped after I prune and the chaeto grows like hell till its full again.
 
well it would be nice to prune my cheato and have it go into "growth mode) however i can't get my cheato to grow it just keeps melting away. lol

i would love to split the mangroves with you (I'm desprate to try anything. lol) if when you get them ship me half and i can send a MO.
 
Sam, search on ebay for mangrove. He has smaller orders for less and there is someone in Florida that has 5 larger ones for $10 shipped. That might be easier than shipping them twice.
 
I know a guy that does tank maintenance and he had a customer that had nitrate issues for a very long time, then her just went over and used a "gravel vac" on their sand and the issue was gone. i've also found from research and word of mouth that nitrate problems can develop where your LR sits on the sand bed. That leads me to believe that any stagnant place in the substrate will run into these issues. I keep a diamond goby which helps keep it stirred up some. but, after letting one of my tanks run for 8 mo w/o a good sand cleaning i got a fairly bad alge problem. after a good syphon of the sand and decreased feeding to trigger my fish into algae grazing mode, all the nascence algae was gone.
so, in short, you may want to try a gravel vac on your sand, and be sure go get beneath your LR.
 
Hey that is a great thought, but vacuuming sand is tough not to suck the sand OUT. Any tricks there? I noticed when I moved my tank this weekend, under the LR was full of *crud*. So this could be a really good idea.

I will be replacing all of my crushed coral with sand (thanks again Allen) in my new 90. The 90 should have water in it tomorrow or Wednesday. So we will see if that helps my problem. I also ordered 21 mangroves tonight. Those things coupled with two DSB's and a coil denitrator better do it *darn* it.

So far out of this thread we have six things to combat nitrates (to sum up)

1. Water changes - always #1
2. DSB (Deep Sand Bed)
3. Refugium with macro algae - with thinning roughly monthly
4. Vaccuum sand trying to get underneath LR
5. Coil or other De-nitrator
6. Mangroves
(Maybe a 7th with sugar or Vodka, but usually not recommended)

Sam,

I tested both systems tonight. My reef is down to 10 and my aggressive on the refugium is at 20, down from 30 using sugar and a good water change.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10599148#post10599148 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jtesdall
Hey that is a great thought, but vacuuming sand is tough not to suck the sand OUT. Any tricks there?
Click to expand...

i just get the tube down into the sand and get a good bit of it sucked up, then i squeeze the hose to limit the suction until the sand drops down. this method lets the sand fall back to the bottom sucks the crap and water out.
i still end up with a small amount of sand in my bucket, you could process that sand and put it back in, but with how much sand we keep in your tanks and how infrequently we need to suck a little out, i don't worry about it.
 
well an update on my tank. I hardly ever add anything to my tank unless i can test for it. but a fellow reefer that i trust told me to try the AZ-NO3 and see how it does with my prob. well I am on day ten and I tested my nitrates last night and they have dropped in half to around 20ppm. i can tell it is lowering them without testing cause the SPS's are really showing the polyps now which is something i never seen much of on some of them.

so as of now i am very happy with the product but it isn't a long term solution. i am just trying to get them lower for now till either my denitrator starts to kick in or i can find what else the prob. is. and if in fact my rock is leaching the nitrates well IMO this should help a bunch.

BTW when it says to have a good working skimmer on the bottle they wern't kiddin. I have got as much skimmate in my cup in 2 days then i would have got in a week and it is pulling out much darker gunk and much more smelly. this time the wife had to leave the room when i cleaned it.
 
I'm not sure what your running for internal flow powerheads but if your only running the two listed you might try increasing your flow to help loosen some of the decaying (if any) material getting caught in the rock. Just a thought. J
 
i was thinking about that also. but yeah as for flow just the mj mod and seio 1100 and also the 700gph I get from the return. so i am getting around 3300gph only 44 times turn over. what would you say would be another good PH to go in?
 
well checked nitrates again on day 12 of using the product and is now down to 10ppm. and skimmer is still going like nuts and stinks. whish i could put the skimmer in a diff. room lol
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10612390#post10612390 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by kau_cinta_ku
well checked nitrates again on day 12 of using the product and is now down to 10ppm. and skimmer is still going like nuts and stinks. whish i could put the skimmer in a diff. room lol
Click to expand...

Charcoal would adsorb some of the odor....
 
What is AZ-NO3, I am not familiar with it? I don't want to go that route but if it doesn't seem to be harming anything for you......
 
i also didn't want to go this route either but was told that if the rock is actually leaching nitrates this stuff works basically like CupriSorb does for copper. it deff. isn't harming anything in the tank however the 2nd and 3rd days of using it the leathers closed up but are now back to being wide open, and as said the sps corals look so much healthier.

i am deff. gonna give the charcoal a try. thanks for the advice


http://www.marinedepot.com/ps_searchItem.aspx?IdCategory=&SearchText=no3
 
it doesn't say anything about that. but does state that you can use it with meds and it won't change the effect of them. also i am running carbon and GFO in my tank and it still seems to be working with those running.
 
You could try and throw some charcoal in the skimmer cup, then it wouldn't react with anything in the tank. I've never tried it but i theory it would absorb the smell.
 
I would think the charcoal would still absorb even with skimmate over it. I read about AZ-NO3, it seems it is an enzyme and not a ?chemical?. So I guess maybe carbon won't absorb it???
 
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