Nitrate !

[ghettoeffect27]

the nitrate in my tank has gone way overboard. how do i lower it to a minimum?

 

[B.Pereira]

Water changes! Do a 10% water change maybe every other day. This can also be reduced by looking if your overfeeding your fish or if your overstocked. Can you give some details about your tank?

 

[ghettoeffect27]

ok. its a 90g fish only. one porc puffer, paddlefin, tomato clown, and foxface. i just cleaned it like a week ago, but i cant get rid of the brown algae or w/e it is on the floor and corals. i feed them every morning and every night.

 

[mrwilson]

How much and what do you feed each morning/night? And how bad are the nitrates? Do you have a protein skimmer? If so, what kind?

 

[elecbzerk]

Do you have a refugium? If not, you may want to consider one with some Chaeto or other macro. In my set-ups I have them and the macro grows well with a cheap light and my nitrates are never high. Also, how often do you do water changes? what do you have for flow?

 

[Pufferpunk]

How big is the puffer? If those fish are all adults, your tank is overstocked. I'd say 100g just to dilute the waste of the puffer. You're going to have to do way more than 10% WC on that tank.

 

[FerrariStradale]

I'm undergoing an upgrade to a 250 just for the reason that my tank nitrates were going overboard (plus I am overstocked)

While my build was taking place I built a "denitrafying bucket"... as I call it.

Basically I plumbed a 5 gallon bucket with 6 inches of Aragonite at the bottom into my system. I have a very small syphon running into the bucket (only 15 - 20 gal. an hour is what you want) the return was plumbed to it drains into a micron sock back into the sump.
The whole point is to build up Anaerobic bacteria.

It took about a month for it to start working but now I am 99% nitrate free.... and I have 3 Triggers plus three others in this tank.

 

[FerrariStradale]

Mind you that it is still necessary to do the water changes and maybe cut down on feeding... but it works in the end if you cannot upgrade your tank

 

[danorth]

What do you do to the sand? Anything in there to sift it?

 

[Pufferpunk]

That is called a Remote Deep Sand Bed.

 

[danorth]

Right, but doesn't the top layer have to be stirred a bit?

 

[FerrariStradale]

I added about a handful of the aquarium sand to jump start the cycle... the syphon makes a little flow which allows the aragonite on top a little movement. other than that no.

 

[FerrariStradale]

^At least I don't sift it and it works perfectly for me.