Nutrient Export...help Please

Mike de Leon

Mike de Leon

New member
Well, I still struggle with controlling the amount of fish that I keep in my tank. I have upgraded my tank from 75 to 135 to accomodate more fish. But it seems I end up going overboard.
Upgrading now is just not an option.
What do I have to do to dramatically improve nutrient export to help keep my tank healthy?
Here's what I have:

135 AGA, around 160 g total volume
40 gal fuge with chaeto and other macros
ASM g2x skimmer
around 100 lbs of Venuato LR
over 4000 gal turnover

I feed twice daily. I do around 20 % WC every two weeks. I also use carbon that I change every month. BTW, does carbon wreak havoc in SPS only tanks?
The tank is now empty of fish due to Ich. All of my fish are now in QT. I have noticed that since the tank is w/o fish all of my corals started to grow at an incredible rate. They also started to color up big time.
The fish that I have in qt now are as follows:

1 - Blueface angel (6")
1 - Bluethroat Trigger (7")
1 - Powder Blue Tang (3.5")
1 - Maroon Clown (3")
1 - Yellow Tang (5")
1 - Cleaner Wrasse
2 - Blue Chromis
1- Diamond Goby

As you can see, considering the type of fish and their size, I am overstocked. Although there are a lot of fish, they seem to be doing just fine except for the Ich which, hopefully will be gone after three months of qt and keeping the main display fallow.

SO what would be the single most effective way of ridding of nutrients quickly? I don't want to do too much WC which can also affect stability of the tank.

Any thoughts please would be appreciated.
Thank you in advance.
 
More live rock...get it up to 1.5 pounds per gallon, a dsb of at least 4" of oolitic aragonite sand. Also, clean the filters more often...at least every week. I didn't see a clean up crew or any detrivores, which would be of huge service..."that's my .02 cents"...good luck
 
If you can't do more frequent water changes, I would get another skimmer. I don't think the one you have is nearly enough for your water capacity and bioload.
 
Welcome to the club! I'm in similar situation for an year - have big and messy fish, that should be fed 3 times daily and a mandarin, for whom the defrozen food is almost all day in the tank.

What particularly bother you:
- ammonia and nitrites, despite the all the LR and cycling;
- nitrates an phospates,
- nuisance algae, diatom and red slime, yellow or green water?

What worked to me:
- removed shallow sand bed - it accumulated all the debris. Some are slowly building and populating sandbeds, but the bare-bottom tank (BB 101) was the way to go for me. All debris are siphoned out, filtered, finesse is skimmed.
- If you can - add boulder type of LR, the dried Carib Sea's Reef Bones are much cheaper, but needs curing, like every LR. Should help with denithrification too.
- if not - you may place highly porous bio-media in the high flow area, after prefiltering, or pores will be clogged. The cheapest I could find, was Seachem Matrix bio-media, it would be better Pond Matrix - larger stone size. Eliminates ammonia and nitrites, but not nitrates. Some bacterial culture for starters, like small bottle of Seachem Stability or Big Al's Multi-Purpose Bio-Support,
- make skimmer work efficiently (Calfo's thread),
- use the best filtration you can - not a monetary matter, just amount of dirty water, going through fine filter media, like micron socks (changed daily, washed weekly),
- if you have sandbed in refugium - watch it's color closely,
- you may try white xenia fuge, seems to be very efficient link or web search for "xenia fuge" and "refugium methodology" inside results,
- presence of the big amount of the corals or macroalgae in the tank may help a lot, they are reusing what was lost by fish,
- denitrification: take look here , denitrification media under sand bed, Duplex sump thread, and the small tank of this guy, overloaded by fish, with mactoalgae and a lot of clams.
- phosphate removers: RowaPhos is considered the best, Kent Phosphate Sponge works fast to remove accumulated phosphates.

Seems, it's all I could think about.
 
SoCalreefer:

Angel's been a good citizen since he was 3". Only nips on digis. Keeps it in line.

Benray:

How would more LR help? They only do denitrification? Also, won't the clean up crew add more bioload?

I am thinking now of getting a larger skimmer. Question again is which one.

Hey Dendor,
Lots of info here. Where are you from Canada?
I personally have never heard of Xenia being used as filters. Very interesting.

I think I will start looking for a new skimmer.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9233821#post9233821 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Mike de Leon


Benray:

How would more LR help? They only do denitrification? Also, won't the clean up crew add more bioload?
Click to expand...

live rock & sand would turn nitrates and phosphates into nitrogen gas (complete nitrogen cycle). The clean up crew and detrivore kit would eat and clean any uneaten food, algae, detritus and keep it from floating in the water column and their bio-load is minimal.

As far as your skimmer goes..."quick fix"...attach an air pump into the intake of the skimmer, this will help immensely with the skimmer you already have...
 
Clean up crew will eat uneaten food and other fish droppings.. just a way to make sure all food is processed into ammonia (faster?) so aerobic bacteria (on surfaces of things) will take care of that to nitrate. More LR will increase anaerobic areas (low to no oxygen). This is where denitrifying bacteria take care of the nitrate. I think the thought of more LR is to increase the denitrifying area in your tank.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9233924#post9233924 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by benray4fun
live rock & sand would turn nitrates and phosphates into nitrogen gas (complete nitrogen cycle). The clean up crew and detrivore kit would eat and clean any uneaten food, algae, detritus and keep it from floating in the water column and their bio-load is minimal.

As far as your skimmer goes..."quick fix"...attach an air pump into the intake of the skimmer, this will help immensely with the skimmer you already have...
Click to expand...

Live rock and sand do nothing for phosphates... there is no PO4 in 2NO3->N2+3O2

I beleive you need a phosban reactor to remove phosphates...
 
Hi,

There are some real good posts. I have two thoughts. If you decide to keep a shallow sand bed, I would recommend getting into the practice of using this (extract from www.bestfish.com):

A better choice is a siphon and gravel cleaning device, which uses a foot-long piece of wide diameter clear rigid plastic tubing as sort of a separation chamber. A siphon is started by scooping up enough water to fill the attached piece of flexible tubing, then the skinny end is held over a bucket, and the wider rigid tubing is pushed into the gravel. Gravel swirls in the chamber as the less dense debris is siphoned out, then the aquarist lifts the chamber a bit to allow the gravel to drop, and moves on to the next section. The diameter of tubing and height of water fall determine how fast water flows, so if gravel is being siphoned out, either choose a smaller unit or put the catch bucket up on a chair. Compared to the siphon-only system, a lot of waste can be extracted per volume of water removed.

Also, if you go with a phosphate remover in your cannister filter or sump, I would recommend a ferric-oxide over an aluminum oxide based resin. Some debate has sprung up regarding the aluminum's effect on polyp extension etc.

cya for now,

Paul
 
Don't forget activated carbon...I also vacuum detritus with a diatom filter...Oh and polyfilters are supposed to help with some stuff, but I have used one and can't really verify this
 
Polyfilters are to remove heavy metals and such, if I remember correctly. Changes color from white to whatever as its polymers absorb gunk...
 
It seems I am having issues with both Nitrates and Phosphates. Readings are 5 and 1 respectively. Now that the tank is fallow and after three WC all is down to 0.

One thing that I haven't done was vacuum detritus off the rocks and the SSB. I also use Diamond activated carbon. I dunno if it's any good.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9233981#post9233981 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by socalreefer73
Live rock and sand do nothing for phosphates... there is no PO4 in 2NO3->N2+3O2

I beleive you need a phosban reactor to remove phosphates...
Click to expand...

More live rock/sand more filtering capacity...equals less nitrates, less nitrates mean less phosphates, he also has a 40 gallon fuge with chaeto..."that does plenty for phosphates"...
 
Last edited:
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9236810#post9236810 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by benray4fun
More live rock/sand more filtering capacity...equals less nitrates, less nitrates mean less phosphates, he also has a 40 gallon fuge with chaeto..."that does plenty for phosphates"...
Click to expand...

I don't mean to argue, but less nitrates does not mean less phosphates. I think if you'll check your last chemistry book you'll note that matter is always conserved (Lavoisier?). We're not splitting atoms in our tanks, so that correlation just can not be made.

Phosphates can only be removed by plant matter harvesting or a phosban reactor and is completely independent of whether there is or is not LR/LS in the tank that is efficiently processing nitrate. I've come across no other way for removal in the literature I have read in books, in online magazines, or reef forums.

By what mechanism does LR/LS remove phosphate?
 
Thanks Paul<--"BIG BROTHER" :D socalreefer is also right, I did mention the chaeto in the fuge right..."maybe his chaeto just is'nt growing or exporting?"...

Mike, is your cheato growing to the point where you're harvesting the macro?...if so how often?... do you have lights over the fuge?... I can't tell by your gallery...:D
 
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