noob needs help but wants to get serious

billyboy1978

New member
Currently running a 75g gallon tank with 30 gallon sump. was misguided and had to learn the hard way. nitrates are through the roof. did 20 gallon water change last saturday, and did another 20 gallon change today. actually think I'm gonna do another 20 change before the night is out. i think my nitrates might actually be measurable after the second change tonight. obviously i got something wrong in my filtering. just ordered a new reef octopus protein skimmer. the one i started with sucks from coralife. looking for any info i get for a noob. I'm planning on getting a bigger tank, and with research into that, I'm realizing i need help. i want lps corals. i got green star polyps, cabbage leathers, elephant ear riccordias, and xenias in the tank now. looking to expand to the red sea reefer 525 xl tank.
 
.How long has your tank been set up? What kind of bio load do you have? How high are your nitrates?
 
.How long has your tank been set up? What kind of bio load do you have? How high are your nitrates?
Bump!

What's your lighting and filtration specs. Like sump, Purigen, GFO etc...

Do you use RO/DI water?

How often do you do regular water changes and how much water do you change at that time.

Tell us everything the more the better!

If you have "patients" and listen to most on this forum, you will have your LPS.

Also Google your topic with Randy Holmes-Farley on the end, too!
 
did a double water change. brought nitrates down to about 40. I've done 60 gallon change in 20 gallon increments over the past two weeks. I got about 120 lbs of live rock all of which is still purple from when i bought it. coraline has taken hold and covered the back glass. Tank has been up for 1 1/2 years. bio load? not sure what that means. If its fish, i have five. blue hippo, fox face rabbit, coral hog, and two things i have no idea what they are. dory and foxy are about four inches long. coral is three, and the other two are and inch and a half. lighting: 2 mars aqua 165 watt leds.
 
20161107_133006.jpg
 
Sand seems dark, but I'm used to looking at white sugar sand so I'm assuming that's just the color of your sand. The tank actually looks really nice. I'm assuming that your concern is adding the LPS you want won't go well with your nitrate levels? I think you will find that things like frogspawn, duncans, acans, etc will be ok at those nitrate levels (40 PPM), but lowering them certainly won't hurt, especially if you have aspirations for sps someday. I've seen a lot of really nice LPS tanks operating for years around 20 PPM NO3.

Assuming you are on city tap water or RO your feeding is far exceeding your nutrient export.
1) How much, of what, and how often do you feed?
2) Other than a skimmer what do you have for nutrient export? I personally really like chaeto in a sump/fuge, but water changes are certainly an option as well.
 
Thread "noob needs help but wants to get serious"

We'll has done nothing in responding to all reply's about giving us full detailed info.

I'm out!

Happy New Year!
 
Pretty sure you should do a full water change, doing partials you will be pulling less and less nitrates out with each change and never get down to 0. Obviously you need to find out what is causing the high nitrates but also you should do a full water change if you want to fix the problem for now.
 
sand is dark because i have a mix of black and white sand. Got the reef octopus 150 int today. Put it together and got it in. Now just have to break it in. Info says a 3 week break in cycle. but if i do that my nitrates are just gonna keep rising. As far as feeding goes, i feed once a day with flakes with a 3 finger pinch. Ive started shutting the pump down when i feed to keep it from going into the filter sock.
 
ro/di- 4 stage barracuda from aqua fx. Also have a water softener hooked into the house water system. Checked my water and its clean.
 
You might add some macro to help pull nutrients out. My understanding is that a skimmer will pull organics, but once it is broken down to nitrate/phosphate the skimmer won't touch it. This of course changes if you use something like vodka dosing to turn those back into organics the skimmer can pull out.

^Entirely based on what I've read. I run a lot of macro and no skimmer on my tanks.
 
I've been looking into cheato and figure i'll do that when i go to a bigger tank and bigger sump in the next 6 months. I'm not running any reactors at the moment but I'm looking into doing something low flow for nitrates.
 
I've been looking into cheato and figure i'll do that when i go to a bigger tank and bigger sump in the next 6 months. I'm not running any reactors at the moment but I'm looking into doing something low flow for nitrates.

Try poly pads until your skimmer breaks in. I have a poly pad and a protein skimmer. Nitrates range between 5-20. I don't want 0 nitrates, but I do want nearly undetectable phosphates. I have a phosphate pad and run GFO to control those. Cheato never stayed alive for me. After three tries I discovered some caulerpa so I'm keeping that in the sump as another means of nutrient control.
 
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