Nitrates Nitrates Nitrates

[nradeni]

Ok I am about to give up well not really but am getting pretty annoyed. I have a 36 Bow Reef Tank that has been established for over a year now. I do water changes more now then the last few months due to some wedding plaining our tank kinda took backseat and now we are trying to revive it. We are running a back pack filter with the confettie (I know you dont spell it like that) for the substrate and a protien skimmer built onto the top. Anyway I know I am rambling but we had a huge algee bloom and got Reef Janitors from GARF and they are helping and we are doing water changes every 3 days it seems like and we CANNOT get our nitrates below 20. So here is my question that it took me that long to get to.

Will removing the Congetie stuff out of the filter and cleaning it or replacing it with fresh stuff help decrease the Nitrate level in our tank?

HELP PLEASE.....

 

[LOTUS50GOD]

Welcome to the addiction as my wife calls it....

Nitrates can hide anywhere.... in the sand.... rocks... and HOB filter substrate .. It wouldnt hurt to gravel vac the confettie (sp?) during your water change... as it could be a possible storage area for nitrates. Do you see ditritus on the substrate?.. Also how much water are you changing.??... what percent.??...

If you are at 20... doing a 10 percent water change will only take your nitrates to 18. *will read the same on any test kit.... doing a 20 percent change will take you to 16....

so in theory to get your nitrates to 10... you would either have to do a 1 time water change of 50% (not recomended) or 6x 10% water changes (with no increase in waste from the current bioload)

Also... how often are you feeding... what is your bioload

 

[nradeni]

Well I have live sand on the bottem so cannot vacum that pasrt of it and I do have a greyish film on my substrate in the filter. I feed every 3 days about i really cut back because Ithought that overfeeding might have been the issue. How would I vaccum the substrate in the filter it self? Would I use the syfen or like a hot magnum or somthing? I just want to thank you so much for responding and helping me through the nitrate nightmare hehe.

I am doing a 10% water change 10 gallons on my 36 with the plenom in it maybe 26 gallon tank now...

 

[Reefy]

Remove the media from the back pak. Don't replace it, it is contributing to your problem. Keep up on the water changes. Blow off your rocks with a power head or turkey baster right before changing your water. Get as much detritus out of the tank with each water change as possible.

 

[nradeni]

Does the Live Rock act as a filter?

 

[Reef'in Colorado]

How deep is your sand? Shoot for a depth of atleast 3in, the deeper the better. Keep up with the water changes. Buy a better skimmer. Feed your tank sparingly. Run some carbon in your system, and replace it about every 3 weeks or so. If possible add a sump/fuge with an intense light to grow some macro algae.

 

[Airman]

Tell us more about you tank. How old is your tank? Tank will go through different cycles as it matures.

 

[nradeni]

The tank is about 1 year and 3 months old.

 

[nradeni]

no I am sorry closer to 2 years old.

 

[mebeigel]

The live rock acts as biological filtration. The more live rock you have, the more surface area you have for beneficial bacteria to form, thus breaking down toxic chemicals such as ammonia and nitrite. Do you have any macro algae like Caulerpa in your tank? B/c this will absorb some of your nitrates.

 

[nradeni]

No I do not in my tank right now I have a plenom set up with 2 inches of crushed coral and 2 inches of live sand. I have about 30lbs of live rock with 4 corals (torch coral, star polups,open brain coral, a sponge, and a dieing honeycomb. Also there is a pair of Moroon yellow striped Clowns, 2 Cleaner Shrimp, a Red Serpant Starfish, and a lot of crabs and snails that I got from GARF. There is a 2 bulb light running one 10k blue light and a 10k white light. Like I said before a backpack filter with media and a protien skimmer. I have to powerheads running off of a wavemaker for the current.

Any other questions let me know.

 

[finneganswake]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6498621#post6498621 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Reefy
Remove the media from the back pak. Don't replace it, it is contributing to your problem.

I absolutely agree, although I would add that you don't want to chuck it all out at once, as this will drastically alter your biofilltration--that stuff has most of your nitrifying bacteria in it, so it could lead to ammonia spikes if it all goes out at once. Remove about a quarter of it every two weeks and you'll be fine. If you want to lower the nitrates until then, there are nitrate lowering systems you can get. I personally like ZeoVit, but it's a bit of an investment (although a GREAT one)--if you're on a budget, your LFS probably has Kent Nitrate Sponge.