Nitrate Problems

[phillybourne]

I have a 55gal saltwater tank. Its been running now for the past 2yrs.

fish in tank -

3 damsels

2 clown fish

1 flame angel

1 fire shrimp

I'm guess about 40/45lbs or so of live rock

feeding - brime shrimp drained once defrosted once every nite...

water parameters -

ph 8.2

ammonia 0.25ppm

nitrites 0ppm

calcium 460ppm

salinity 1.026

nitrates 40ppm

temp 82

i haven't tested my alk or mag cause i don't have any corals in the tank
should i be testing them?

use oceanic natural sea salt

equipment -

coralife T5 lighting system actinic blue lights 9am to 2pm white and actinic blue run 2pm -10pm actinic blue 10pm till mid nite

just upgraded to a CPR HOB medium aquafuge w/skimmer refugium with 4inch sand bed 1lb live rock rubble and macro algae.

refugium been running for two weeks now.. left light on 24hrs first week but now have cut back the light till the main tank lights go out which would be 10pm -8am

I been doing 20% water changes using r/o water every two weeks

just recently i did a water change and my water parameters stayed the same before and after the water change. those parameters are listed above. So the big question is will my refugium help with the nitrates and what am i doing wrong? How can i get my nitrates to come down? Still kinda new after 2yrs. i dont have much experience with refugiums Any advice would be highly appreciated and helpful... Thanks!

 

[bertoni]

That's a reasonably high stocking list, and not a lot of live rock. I'd probably dose some Amquel or Prime for the ammonia, and get a second opinion on that kit.

The fish are fine with that nitrate level, so you could ignore it. Otherwise, you could consider adding cured live rock to the tank. That might help. The refugium might help, too, given some time. I don't see any reason to hurry, in any case.

 

[Trock577]

Have you tried a bio pellet reactor

 

[phillybourne]

hey thanks...so you think i may have to many fish in my tank? i just added a few more cured live rock to my tank.. how much live rock you think you needed for 55gal tank? also whats amquel or prime? that will help the ammonia problem? the only reason id like to get the nitrates down is id like to add corals at one point but just dont wanna waste the money till my water parameters are right..

 

[bertoni]

Amquel or Prime will bind the ammonia, which will help the fish if the ammonia reading is accurate. Ammonia kits often fail and read a bit of ammonia all the time, though.

I'd probably target 80-90 lbs of live rock in the system. I don't know the sizes of the fish, so I don't know whether the tank has too many.

 

[phillybourne]

3 damsels 2 clowns 1 flame angel 1 fire shrimp, there all pretty small fish.. never really had a problem with ammonia always read 0 ppm or 0.25 ppm 80 -90lbs really?? just don't know how i'd fit that much live rock in my tank...lol here's a photo of what i got in my tank now..so if ammonia kits often fail and read a bit of ammonia still be good to get amquel or prime?

 

[bertoni]

Well, one of the problems with specifying amounts of live rock is that some pieces or types are a lot denser than others.

If the problem is the ammonia kit, Amquel (or Prime) won't do anything useful, but it won't hurt, either.