nitrate overload.

[PRDubois]

Your sand bed was probally mixed up in the move. It will settle down. When you do your water changes do not vacume the sand. You only want to disturb the top 1/4" of the sand bed.

Do 20% water changes every week toll the nitrates get under control.

Put on a new biowheel if you want to keep that filter you will need to replace the biowheels every month or every other month.

Invest in a good protien skimmer. Look at the Octopus 100 HOB (hang on back)

 

[ricksconnected]

whys.

ok on the sandbed. would it hurt to change it out altogether? i really dont like the blk/white stuff anyways. would rather have aragonite. if changing be the answer how should i do it. throw the old out and in with the new? how long til i add my rock and fish/crabs/snails back in? i too had hoped waterkeeper would stayed with the post. ive read a lot of his posts. knows alot.


prdubois

i have a coralife super skimmer on the tank now. seems to be working fine.

 

[PRDubois]

SS is a ok skimmer I use to have one on my 20 gal. Just watch the flow when you add water or add additives.

IF you want new sand:
You can put the fish in a QT (Rubbermaid container works with heater and powerhead)
Put 50% of your water in buckets to reuse
Take out the old sand and throw away
Drain the tank and rinse it out.
Put new sand into the tank.
---- You can use all Live sand or you can use dry aragonite and seed with a little live sand from another reefer.

Refill the tank with the old water and top off with new SW by:
Put a plate on the sand and pour water onto the plate slowly.
---- Helps to minimize the sandstorm

Add rock back to the tank

When the water clears, make sure the Temp, PH match the QT tank.
Add the fish back in

 

[oxymoron]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15001304#post15001304 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Whys
The biowheel is converting your ammonia to nitrite then nitrate very efficiently as it has ample exposure to air. The problem is the biowheel does not provide any anaerobic conversion of nitrate to nitrogen. This is also true of canister filters, bioballs. The prevailing wisdom is that liverock provides a better balance of aerobic to anaerobic bacteria and thus a less toxic environment.

There ya go. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[Aquarist007]

I just read the link from another thread.

The health of the entire sand bed depends on the vital top layer. You disturbed that when you moved therefore it has to reestablish. It is the bethnic creatures that live in it that actually pass nitrated down to the anerobic bacteria that live in the anoxic layers of the dsb.

 

[ricksconnected]

ok you mentioned reestablish. how long should this take? will the nitrates continue to keep going up?

 

[WaterKeeper]

What me? Answer anything about DSB's?

I think the previous posters gave a pretty good summary on the beds. Here are the main qualities of a good bed.

1. It should be in the area of 4" deep
2. It should be sugar grain sized or smaller particles
3. It should be seeded with plenty of true live sand
4. Annual to biannual reseeding is very beneficial
5. Aragonite is best but silica sands are OK if aragonite is hard to find or too pricey
6. It should be allowed to develop without undue agitation
   [/list=1]

1. 
   
   To elaborate on those points. The bed needs to be close to 4" deep to develop anoxic zones where nitrate is reduced to nitrogen gas. Deeper beds are really of no added benefit and tend to go totally anaerobic in some cases. They also waste room in the tank.
   
   The sugar fine particles provide great surface area while things like crushed coral are larger in particle size and reduce the surface area. There smaller size allows particle movement easier than heavy, large grains.
   
   The key to a successful bed is the sand shifting organisms the stir the bed and keep the bed from stagnating. These are tiny worms, starfish, snails, and copepods that live in the sand. They help water movement in the bed and also consume detritus that settles into the bed. You need a true livesand to provide these organisms. Package sand said to be live is usually just wet sand containing a bacteria culture seed and does not provide the sand shifting organisms so necessary to bed health.
   
   Over time those beneficial organism tend to die out mainly due to predation. Therefore adding new LS on an annual basis maintains bed diversity. If one has a refugium then that seeding may only be needed every two years. True LS is best for a seed material but a good detrivore kit can be used.
   
   Aragonite is fairly light and smooth edged meaning the particles are easier to move. It also provides some buffering ability to acidic conditions that may occur in stagnant areas of a DSB. It is OK to use silica sands but the bed may not be as effective as an aragonite bed.
   
   Manually stirring or deep vacuuming of the bed will destroy the anoxic conditions one desires in the bed. They take time to develop so manual agitation should be limited to the top quarter inch or so. Avoid too many large sand burrowing fish or inverts as they too will keep the bed too well stirred. I'm not too sure about Scott's statement on the top layer. True it is vital to the bed but it is aerobic near the surface so stirring is not a problem. The bacteria on the sand cling pretty tight so it would take really strong agitation to remove them.
   
   Oh, You don't need the biowheel with LR and a DSB. It provides no benefit and can increase nitrate levels as was pointed out.

 

[Aquarist007]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15002493#post15002493 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by WaterKeeper
. I'm not too sure about Scott's statement on the top layer. True it is vital to the bed but it is aerobic near the surface so stirring is not a problem. The bacteria on the sand cling pretty tight so it would take really strong agitation to remove them.

.

maybe I can convince you WK

Stirring is not a problem---its keeping the numbers of the inverts in that area that is healthy to the the anoxic area below.
According to Shimek organic laden water cannot pass through a substrate passively. The key method of transport from layer to layer is via invert to invert. Each consuming the waste of the invert in the level above--reducing some nitrate to co2 in the process, and finally passing the bulk of the nitrates to the anerobic denitrifiers in the anoxic area of the dsb.

Shimek, Calfo on others have a problem with adding hermit crabs ,sand sifter stars ect when a bed is being established because they can quickly delete the level of inverts in the top layers of the sand bed

I have a very layman concept of this but I look at it as a pipeline from the top level of the dsb downwards. If one does not maintain the level of life in the top bed then transfer of nitrates downward is not accomplished and they build up in the top regions just as they would in bioballs ect.
I also see using a turkey baster and lightly basting the top layer as good practise in that it releases nitrates ect back into the water column where they can be filltered off.

 

[WaterKeeper]

I agree. I at one time thought that hermits were great in a tank as they eat most anything. However, that includes things like worms and pods that keep the bed healthy. I now suggest you avoid them or just add one or two. Using a turkey baster is fine if it is just used to blow material off the top of the bed. Even one of those sand vacs is OK if you don't push it into the bed.

The top of the bed is where hydrolysis of debris occurs and that is almost entirely done under aerobic conditions. Ammonification and nitrification are both aerobic too. They are essentially completed in the first half inch of the bed. The process then slows down as refractory organic compounds are created. They are slowly consumed and thus reduce oxygen levels deeper into the bed. Once oxygen drops below around 0.5 ppm the refractory carbon is used to in the process of denitrification and the nitrate donates oxygen for organic consumption. Hopefully, by this time, the remaining carbon compounds are stable and further oxidation is not needed.

It is very true that this assembly line type treatment of waste products is the main reason a DSB has value in the marine tank. LR can only somewhat duplicate the conditions in a DSB and, as it has such limited pore area compared to the DSB, it cannot cope with the high organic loadings present in many marine tanks.

 

[Aquarist007]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15002872#post15002872 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by WaterKeeper
I agree.

Yeah--my extensive reading has payed off----my most esteemed mentor on RC agrees:celeb3: :bigeyes:

BTW
that was an outstanding summary you posted above---may I post it to my blog on dsb's

 

[WaterKeeper]

:lol:

Well, I would need to talk to the lawyers that my editor retains...
Copy away Scott; I don't see one of those © symbols on my posts.

 

[oxymoron]

Wow great info here.

 

[WaterKeeper]

You should see what we can do if you ask us about the anticlinal Cairn structure of sandstones and shales in an oil field.

 

[ricksconnected]

ok waterkeeper a lot of the above i didnt understand.
some of it i did. im wondering if you little engineer goby is stirring up to much stuff. that thing tunnels is @ss off and then some.

 

[WaterKeeper]

Could be the problem. Some fish just dig in in a small area but engineers seem to have more complex blueprints for their work and will excavate larger areas. In a smaller tank it can be a problem with the bed establishing those zones I was talking about.

 

[Aquarist007]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15005376#post15005376 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ricksconnected
ok waterkeeper a lot of the above i didnt understand.
some of it i did. im wondering if you little engineer goby is stirring up to much stuff. that thing tunnels is @ss off and then some.

can you qt the engineer for a month or so

 

[ricksconnected]

oh Lord. my girlfriends feelings will be hurt big time if i have to get rid of him. she loves that fish.
i need to try other ideas before i get to that point. lol she will be broke up about it.

 

[WaterKeeper]

You could revoke his engineer's license.

 

[ReefWreak]

or get rid of the sand bed entirely! If you can't do that because you like the look, just do a 1/4-1" deep sand bed, and keep t a lot of flow over it. Flow through the rocks will do all the biological filtration. Turn that HOB filter into a refugium like the nano-kids used to do. (Check out AC300 mods). Just stick some cheato (algae) into the HOB once you remove all the filtration media, and stick a desk lamp or clip on lamp over it. That should help you out a bit.

You should really take EVERYTHING out of the tank though and RINSE OUT THAT SAND! just to get the accumulated crap out of it. It'll mess up the biological filtration, but whatever, you'll be better off if you never cleaned it out after getting the tank from your friend.

That being said, if you're only going to have fish, you can even keep the nitrate levels reasonably high, since fish don't mind it as much as corals. Most of us don't accept ANY nitrates (or very low nitrates) because we're keeping coral. If you're not keeping coral, nitrates aren't as big a deal as other parameters (within a reasonable level).

Granted, if you do just run a FOWLR tank with high nitrates, you're doing your fish a disservice by irritating them with higher nitrates, but at least you're not killing them or corals or whatever.

I recommend doing some reading of the FAQs in the beginner forum.

 

[ricksconnected]

oh theres times ive wanted to do more than revoke. lol
she wakes up and goes and checks on him everymorning before she even tends to the beagle. lol