If there is already an anwer... Please refer me there...

O

opus18

First off... Hey!

I'm exceedingly new to the art of SW... Though had FW tanks for years.

What I have thus far:
Equipment:
46G Bowfront
Dual 100w heaters
Pro-Clear Wet/Dry
Pro-Clear Skimmer
Return Sump
SEIO M620 Powerhead
Currently, stock lights, but will be receiving my Coralife Lunar Aqualight hopefully today or tomorrow (bought at the sale @ DNA on Saturday)

Critters and such:
46lb LR
45lb LS
5 Green Chromis
2 Black Perculas
4 Margarita Snails
2 Astrea Snails
6 Nassarius Snails
4 small scarlet hermits
Most recent add-ons, again at the DNA sale... And praying my lights come in quck for these...
1 Frogspawn
1 Bubble coral
1 Fox Coral
1 Torch (discovered to be infected with brown jelly disease & treated with RO dip)
1 beautiful group of purple-red mushrooms.

Feeding the fish mysis/brine cube 2Xday
DT's Phytoplankton every other day (1tbs)

With the infection of my torch, my nitrites jumped up to a measurable level (.25) and my nitrates are climbing even after a 5G water change. I plan to do another change Saturday (3 day wait) and hope that will help.

I've seen a few posts on another forum (saltwaterfish.com) where people are advising to drop the bioballs if you have LR. They are going as far as replacing their bio balls with more LR saying that the bioballs are fighting with what the LR is supposed to be doing and in turn generating nitrate...

Is this a better route to go? Is it even possible with the wet/dry I have?

Again, if this has been asked/answered, please refer me to the thread so as to not waste others time re-answering...

Thanks in advance on this one...
 
ditch the bio balls. There are alot of threads here about that but I dont have the time at the moment to hunt for them. You are correst about them being nitrate factories. You can probably do a search for bio balls and find a bunch of the info. :D
 
Should I replace them with anything or just remove? I'd really not like to spend another $8.50/lb for more LR at the moment... :lol:
 
Thanks all... Will do a slow removal starting tonight...Not sure how many are in there, but will watch water levels as I go...
 
Removing them is not going to really affect the water level since their density is menimal. The reason to remove them slowly is because you are also removing any good bacteria. You have to give your system time to acclimate to the change.

As to what to put in there. Well you could go with nothing. I had the same unit and I went to the local store and got rubble from the LR vats. I put this in the area. It provide additional filtration as well as a place for the pods to hide and build up.

Good Luck!
 
Branched question on this one... as i said above, I had detected brown jelly disease on a torch (reduced to a nub) and this AM, a spot of it on my frogspawn. I vacummed out the gunk from the frogspawn and gave it a 3 minute RO drip. Should I dip the remaining corals? Exotic Aquatics (one guy there) said that it won't jump from coral to coral, yet Mike @ DNA just told me it will... I don't want to lose my bubble, fox, frogspawn, & mushrooms... Please advise...

- Opus
 
It doesn't jump, per se, but it can float & drift in your tank and land on another coral in the process. Just remove what you can see, and it should stop it in its tracks. I use a hose to siphon out stuff like that, because scooping it out, it may fall apart and disperse throughout the tank due to the flow.
 
The torch, I wasn't sure what it was until I got it out... Hadn't seen it before. The smell was near unbearable... The one remaining nub was dipped. (though now I've read that a simple RO dip of 3 minutes won't suffice?) the Frogspaw was vacummed, then pulled out and dipped...

All the corals were purchased at the same time and put in the tank at the same time, otherwise a QT would have been used... Should I get some stoney coral iodine dip and run them all through just in case?
 
The bioballs may be a problem but here is something else I noticed -

Feeding the fish mysis/brine cube 2Xday said:
Are you feeding two cubes a day? If so, this is way too much. Even if you're just using a small amount, are you draining the packaging water off of the food once it thaws? It often carries large amounts of phosphates and nitrates that can contribute to poor water quality.

Maybe try rationing the food a little, overfeeding is also a big contributor to water quality problems.
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Are you feeding two cubes a day? If so said:
Will cut back to a single cube... I've been placing the cube in a cup of water from the tank and slowly pouring back in... Is there an easy way to "drain the water off?"

Thanks...
Click to expand...
 
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