nitrates too high

NP. I keep trying to use myself as an example and it probably isn't a good idea. I was forced to wait to set up my tank for almost a year while I was stationed in Kosovo. It was during that time that I found RC and was able to read, read, read. I also a few books that I had gotten for Christmas to keep my imagination running wild. That also meant that I had a grand saved up to set up my first tank and could do just about everything right the first time if I took a few cost cutting steps which has gotten me into DIY quite a bit. Not everyone has the forced patience that I had.

You must be Heather...sorry if I called you Pete before (poor assumption). Anyways, using tap water will only do you more harm than good. I too had to learn that the hard way. Most LFSs will use tap water because it is cheap and the income going into most of their cash registers is not that great so they'll take any sale that they can get. Many grocery stores will have RO water which will have a very low TDS level which is nearly as good as RO/DI. Make sure that you are feeding the bare minimum. I still feed daily, and they have big fat bellies (I should take new pics) but the amount keeps them picking at rocks all day to find more food which keeps things cleaner.

I won't abondon you two so keep coming back with your questions. It is best to keep up with this thread for your nitrate issues and a lot of the New Tank issues that you have. Once a new problem comes up (and they will, trust me) start a new thread, at least one of us has gone through it before. When you stay in one thread it is like going back to the same doctor over and over again. A new Dr will ask the same questions as the last one and only prolong matters further.
 
My patience too has been tested for the last few days, but having 3 boys (4yrs, 8yrs, 11yrs)and a tank that wont behave is a lot to take! that being said, I am glad to know that there are people like you in the reef community that really do care, Pete and I are trying to figure what would be a better choice in the long run, modifying our tank or starting over with a new tank? right now we are trying to find the culprit of the trate prob, we think it is those funny shaped noodle ceramic whatever they are, we are removing them slowly, but once they are gone what do we replace them with? another filter? or just leave that area open? we have a lot of research to do in order take make the best decision possible, once agian, thanks to all who are helping us come to that conclusion.
 
To tell you the truth, if you have 40 lbs of LR in that tank, you can probably take them out a lot quicker than you are. Like a quarter of them every 5 days or sooner. Your LR should have more than enough bacteria to make up for the loss rather quickly. About 1 lb per gallon is all that is needed of LR to provide all the biological filtration that you need in that tank. It might be a good guess that food is getting trapped in your canister filter and contributing greatly to the trate problem. Do you have a wet/dry on that problem tank as well? If you do, you might was well just convert it to a sump by pulling everything out of there and sticking a skimmer in it. Wet/Dry filters work good, too good. Most of the time the wet/dry can breakdown organic material before it can be skimmed out. Even w/o a skimmer, the LR will take care of all the nitrogen products in the tank.
 
heather...all you need is a skimmer and LR for filtration. keep it simple.
you have the option of running mechanical filtration but i really dont see why you would want to.
 
answer to pvtschultz, I have a wet dry filter, not a canister. My aquarium is a JEBO (some call it a uniquarium) and does not have enough room for a skimmer in the w/d compartment, that is why we are considering a doing some mods. I am not sure what exactly type of sump we can have, we may not have enough room in the cabinet for a sump..I think???.
Pete went to a lfs tonight and the guy there said we could use a canister filter and a skimmer that hangs on the back??? we have to first figure out what can work and what won't. Another question....I have not seen my hermit crab for at least 2 days, he may have died..If he did, will his death cause any additional harm to the tank? should we try to find him and remove him? So far all that is left is a fire shrimp, a damsel, 5 turbo snails...so sad!
 
could not sleep, fish on the brain... was searching the net for nitrate solutions and found "kents nitrate sponge" says it removes nitrates slowly...how reliable is this product, seems to good to be true?
 
Not a big fan of chemical cures myself and really you don't need a canister filter either. Like was said before, LR and a skimmer will provide your tank with everything that it needs (other than water changes).

Here is all that you'll need for a sump and skimmer:
62870fresh_water_test_run.jpg


A trip to Walmart for a $10 ten gallon glass tank. They are 10.5X20.25X12 inches (WXLXH) and fit almost anywhere. Then you are going to need a pump to return the water back to the tank. There are several low cost pumps out there, you are going to need need 150-300 gph at about 4' of head: Mag Drive 5 = $55, Quiet One 2200 = $47 (both good pumps) and then there are the economically priced pumps like the ViaAqua 2300 = $20. I purchased my skimmer off of ebay. It was a WON brothers Clean Up skimmer. It works great but I wasn't able to find any. There are a lot of Jebo skimmers out there if you are budget conscience. I'm not sure how they have been working though. Maybe a LFS around you has one set up so you can see how it has been working. Now there is the whole issue about getting water to the sump. If it has a built-in overflow into that W/D section, you might be able to use that. Is the tank glass or acrylic? You can use an overflow box to get the water over the back of your tank or you can drill it/have it drilled for a more seamless approach. Otherwise, you could use a hang on skimmer and skip a lot of the hassles. I assume the wet/dry portion of your tank is in the back so you probably could stick the pump in there and you won't see it from the front of the tank. Let me know what you think.
 
here are the answers some of your questions, the tank is glass, im not quite sure if the w/d compartment can fit a skimmer? its measurements are 3 inches deep and if I remove the divider, 21 inches long,that is where the filter and those noodles are housed. I have pics of that part of my tank and of the cabinet on my digi camera if that would help. the cabinet is 10 inches deep, 26 inches long and 26 inches tall, it has 2 pre drilled open holes in the back of it. Also another question....how can my lr be so beautiful with all the colors..purple, green, pink, ect in a tank with such high trates? also how come all the other parameters are perfect? also why are my corals doing ok? the water looks perfectly clear and we dont have any unwanted algae...yet? anyhow that canister pete was looking at had a skimmer in it and and overhang & it was small, the guy told pete that this is what we need? this should run around $300+ and we have already spent over $2700 on misc items.... all these conflicting opinions...so much research to do ,I guess the fun has just begun!
 
Nitrate doesn't really cause as many problems as a lot of people seem to think it does. If the tank doesn't have any picky stony corals, the nitrate level probably doesn't matter much over a fairly wide range. Coralline, if anything, will consume the nitrate happily. I had a tank that measure 50ppm nitrate for years with no real problems. Of course, I was keeping only soft corals, fish, shrimp, snails, etc, no stony corals at all.

The nitrate sponge will work perfectly well, although it seems to be expensive because of the quantity used. A search in the breeders forum might turn up some threads there.
 
The canister filter with the skimmer built in might be a Skilter, and they get pretty bad reviews. I would avoid a canister filter in general as they can lead to higher nitrate levels. The exception would be to use them to run activated carbon, or just for water motion.

For a 55g tank, you could consider a CoraLife SuperSkimmer, or perhaps the new tiny ASM skimmer (about $100). The SuperSkimmer can be run as a hang-on, so it doesn't need a sump.
 
I agree that a canister filter adds a great deal of nitrates to the water level.

I was using a canister filter because the LFS told me that was all I needed.

I know an designing a remote sand bed with live rock and a skimmer.

I slowly removed the internals from my canister filter, and now use it for charcoal filter only. Works great for that.
 
bertoni... are any of my corals considered picky...flowerpot, 3 frogspawn, 1 hammer, 1 torch, how about fish, I really miss my clowns, and my blenny! I just checked my nitrate and it is at 20 ppm, and once agian all the other parameters are fine.
 
so, from what im reading, nitrates dont ALWAYS cause probs w/fish and corals? so why are people so darn obsessed with kepping them at 0 ppm????? anyone outhere is welcome to comment on this...thanks
 
Fish don't care about nitrate levels. Some of the corals you mentioned might turn brown over time because of the nitrate level, or have problems. I would expect the Euphyllia (hammer, torch, and frogspawn) to be fairly hardy, but I'd still target zero for nitrate. That's how much of the reef measures, in our terms. The flowerpot, if it's Goniopora, I wouldn't expect to survive in any case.

The coralline probably can't sequester much nitrate. You need to grow and harvest an alga to reduce the nitrate in the tank. The coralline only soaks up nitrate as long as it's spreading, I would suspect.
 
so when can I start adding some fish? I really miss the clowns and the blenny, we've done a 100% wc about 5 days ago and our tank shows no sign of starting to cycle agian. funny thing is the flowerpot is doing the best of my corals, flowing like crazy! frogspawn is running a close 2nd! the trates are hovering around 20 ppm.
 
You can add fish any time, as far as nitrate goes.

I would expect the corals to take months to show a problem, if the basic tank setup is okay. Flowerpots often look great for a fair amount of time. Of course, I'm only guessing as to the type of coral you have.

Also, I should retract a bit. Fish might care about nitrate if it gets to the 600ppm range or thereabout. 20ppm is irrelevant to the fish.
 
Ooops, meant to add that a 100% water change might be very stressful, and could cause more problems than it solves. I would limit them to about 20-25%.
 
thanks, i needed a little encouragement about getting a fish or 2, and as I stated the trates have never been above 40 ppm, I am gonna try that nitrate sponge in the meantime while we decide on what mods to do (there are sooooo many choices) maybe a strawberry container w/macroalgae that i can keep in the tank, and continue w/tukey baster blasting under the the rocks and and making a sandstorm to go through the filter and 10-20% wc every 4 days. that should keep the trates low, right??????
I hope im doing this right??? thanks for your input Bertoni
 
we did a 100% wc over like a week or so,not all at once! like 5-10 gals every few days, we did that cause we testerd the trates and they were around 40-60 ppm.
 
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