On the verge of giving up

Nu2SW

Nu2SW

New member
I have been fighting a Nitrate issue for the past 3 months.

Ive lost some stuff, but I cant get the nitrates low.

I feed maybe once to twice a day, just enough food that they eat everything.

I have about 18 gallons of total water volume with 2 clowns and one small strawberry dotty. 1 clown is about a 1inch 1/2 ,the other clown is about 2 inches and the other dotty is about 2 1/2 inches. 12 gallon tank and a 10 gallon tank down below.

My nitrates are through the roof. Ive dont massive amounts of water changes and Ive gotten down to like 10 ppm, but now its about 60ppm.

So I am curious for other Nano owners what food you use. I use Sallys mysid, One in a while as a treat I use the red package of of filter feeder stuff they sell at the fish stores in the freezer. Also use reeds phytofeast for my clam.

I am also wondering if someone else has used some physical means of removal with something like this.....http://www.petstore.com/ps_viewitem.aspx?idproduct=SC3195

I love my tank, but the nitrates are killing me.



any insight would be highly appreciated.

thank you
 
In my nano I use PE mysis and rinse it through a strainer and sometimes hikari. Good luck.
 
Do the rinse thing like Mark does.

Think about plumbing a RDSB. I hooked mine up a few weeks ago and will report the results. My ppm has been 20ish before the experiment.
 
Oh sry forgot to mention



in the 10g tank I have cheato and a skimmer


Dont have much sand in the tank at all


Not sure how I would do the RSB, dont have much room under the stand.
 
How old is the tank?

What type of filtering do you use? (carbon, skimmer, dsb)
Why are you feeding 1 or 2 times per day? With those fish, and if your tank is mature feeding once every other day would be enough.

What kinds of corals are you keeping?

What have you lost?
While 60ppm of nitrate is high for a reef, it is not even close to off the charts. In addition, most zoo's, shrooms, and softies can tolerate nitrate in that range.

WHat is your water change schedule?
 
Most of the time I do only feed once a day, well my wife. I am at work during the day. Sometimes I put in mysid in the evening, but not that often.

I have a skimmer and carbon.

Water changes as of late have been weekly to bi-weekly, But I stopped about 2-3 weeks ago because it was getting to hectic, using too much salt and taking to much time. I have water being made right now for another water change.


The tank has been setup for about 8 months or so.

All my softies are doing great, they actually look the best they have ina while. But its my SPS i am worried about and my clam.
 
yeah, i'd quit using the phytofeast and the filter feeder stuff if I were you....that stuff can dirty up a tank rather quickly (IMO).
 
i don't feed daily. sometimes i don't feed for a week. they learn to find food on their own :D i seen my clown fish eat pods like a wrasse does.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10814664#post10814664 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Nu2SW
Water changes as of late have been weekly to bi-weekly, But I stopped about 2-3 weeks ago because it was getting to hectic, using too much salt and taking to much time.

All my softies are doing great, they actually look the best they have ina while. But its my SPS i am worried about and my clam.
Click to expand...

I'd get rid of the clam and SPS.

Nitrates will accumulate rapidly in such a small tank and will take a lot of work to keep the levels low enough for your liking.

You said you're "on the verge of giving up." I think that you may be fighting a losing battle here.
 
Yeah you might want to get rid of the clam and sps. In addition to the nitrate, you may have some chemical warfare going on between the softies and sps. I also agree with shiveley on the filter feeder food. That stuff causes nitrate spikes in my 135, i can't imagine what it's doing to your little tank. I'd also recommend that you cut the feedings back to every other day. The fish should be able to find plenty of pods to eat on their own.
Good luck!
 
The clam seems to be doing good, Its gotten larger since christmas.

see the thing was earlier in the year, I wasnt having any problems with Nitrates, they were pretty low for about 5-6 months......

Actually the tank I got up and running last year in november or december. So its older then I said.

I only got a couple of SPS, A acro and some other type, that I cant remember what it is.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10814664#post10814664 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Nu2SW


Water changes ....taking to much time.
Click to expand...

Edwin it's an easy fix.

1.Less food

2.More WC

3.Bigger/Better skimmer

Dude you must be super busy
Cuz i work 2 full time jobs and teach part time and still have time to do a 30 gallon WC every Saturday and run all my tests.

You knew before you started this hobby that it's a lot of work.

It's no about finding time it's about making time and if you can't make time to properly care for your animals then IMO you should give it up until you can fine the time.

Good Luck!
Ed
 
Trying to house sps and softies is a known battle, which would only be amplified in a smaller system such as yours. People go to great lengths to house the two with either large volums of water or mass amounts of carbon and frequent carbon changing and water changes to find their temporary success. Allopathy is a very real thing and the leading reason why I believe I can't keep sps in my softy tank, just too many leathers and toadstools. Leathers are the highest producers of toxic terpenes known in the hobby, and in the wild a very real deterrant, was flippen through some studies today and apparently they've discovered 4 new terpine components among the other already known, a compound that contributes to the allopathy between corals and released by leathers, toadstools and finger leathers being the most potent to sps growth and survival.

You may want to try vacuuming portions(like a 1/4-1/3 then when you do another WC do another 1/4-1/3 that you skipped over last time till eventually most of the sandbed has been vacuumed, usually by the end of the month) of your sandbed just prior to your waterchanges to remove any dead pockets that may be leaching nasties in your watercolumn. Dead pockets of detritus, dead snails or other critters can slowly get disturbed and leach trace amounts of amonia, which your system would quickly change to nitrite, then of course your left with nitrate. Sounds like a possibility since youve been doing somewhat frequent waterchanges and are still having problems. Good luck.

-Justin
 
At our house there are daily habits, weekly rituals, semi-annual ceremonies and random work sessions. The maintenance must be your zen time or...
 
Another vote for reduced feedings. With nearly the same fish I ran a 29 gal for a few years feeding maybe every other day or every 2 days, and even then only what the fish would eat in about 3 minutes. They stayed fat and happy. Now if you had certain tangs, anthias, or wrasses, that feeding schedule would need to be ramped up.
Also, vacuuming the upper sand bed is a must at least every 6-8 weeks doing 1/3 or so. There are also several nitrate reactors on the market, with others from RC indicating how much they helped, so I would check them out. That won't solve the problem, as the problem is too much organic input without enough removal, but it will lessen the problem.
 
I don't know about the bigger skimmer Ed. I have an 8 gal without a skimmer and my nitrates are probably around .25-30. The tank is on my desk and I feed daily, but nothing green(pyhto). I do not know what else to offer, but you can try to syphon the sand as well.
 
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