Nitrate questions

T

Tj51

Have had some nitrates (20 - 40 ppm range), and have a couple questions

1) I have a 42 gallon tank with 50 lbs of live rock, a remora protein skimmer, nitrate sponge in a reactor, a flugal cannister filter and a small fish load (a 2" clown, a small scooter, a small canary wrasse, and a flame hawk) and do a 10% weekly water change.... is no nitrates possible without a refugium?

2) yesterday I removed 2 damsels (one large) from my tank, took the sponge out of my cannister and added fresh carbon and phosphate sponge to myh cannister. Tonight my nitrates were still at least 20 ppm. I've done 2 20% water changes in the past week, (one was yesterday BEFORE correcting all of the above). Will the nitrates remain until I do another change or since I've made these corrections will they disappear by themself? If I need another water change, is it to soon after a 20% yesterday?


Thanks!

Tj
 
I had a wet dry and a canister and had Nitrates.

I converted the wet dry to a fuge/sump and they now read 0 every time i take them

I still have the canister filter in.
I have a 100 gallon with probably 200 lbs of live rock.

lots of corals and lots of fish...
the tank seemes to be more stable with more live rock.

the refugium pull out the nitrates. and the canister is there just to help with bio load although I have taken it out of service to see if i get a spike in my water parms and i never do. I did take all the spnges out and put cyramic rocks in there...
 
its cool that you have no nitrates, but I guess my question in a nutshell is can you get to a 0 or low level without a refugium?
 
@tj51 wrote:
its cool that you have no nitrates said:
Several changes you could implement that would help. Nitrates are basically an overload in some way that your system can't keep up with.... be it overfeeding, heavy poopers or inadequate bacteria. Looking at LR, you have decent amount if you look at weight only....that can be misleading as all LR is not equal. A LR such as Marshall island is very light and porous, the surface area can be many many time's more that another LR type ( tonga, tufa rock, etc). Going to a more porous LR can help, so can more efficient skimming. Do upgrades to your skimmer(next size mag pump) or upgrade the skimmer. You could add a deep sand bed(DSB) to your tank or use a remote sand deep bed (RDSB) aka bucket of sand or get a HOB fuge. My first tank wasn't reef ready and I tried a HOB fuge along with the remora HOB skimmer, pretty soon the tank looked like a bad experiment with all the stuff hanging off of it. These are a few thing's that you can try but with all the money and hassle you will go through, I would suggest upgrading to a reef ready tank and adding a sump/fuge. It will make your life much easier and your tank much healthier in the end. :) Just my two cent's...been there...done that. :wink:

Cheers,
Click to expand...
 
your $.02 is always worth a lot more then that......I will look into a hob refugium but as your early tank I have a lot of stuff on back, namely a phosbate reactor, remora ps, power head, heater, and cannister so I don't know where I could put it.
 
i saw a tank once that had a 5 gallon bucket under it and what they did was just run the woter through it..

Deep Sand bed is the quick dirty way...

I do not think or it is my opinion that unless you hve a sump or refuge or the DSB you can not have 0 Nitrates..

I had filtration on the 90 that was for a 300 gallon tank and i had a lot of live rock.

Until i got the refuge/sump they did not go away..
 
I run a Nano tank without a refugium or skimmer and I keep 0 nitrates. My case is a bit different as I have the nano tank, I don't have a lighted chamber or any other modification other then LR in the chamber in back with lots of pods. My success I believe is 20% water changes weekly and Purigen changes monthly . I also do not run any sponges or bioballs and change my poly filter (Polyfiber in a filter bag) every other week. So the answer is yes you can run 0 nitrates without a fuge. I think the trick is to eliminate the areas which hold unused food and fish waste or at bare minimum maintain and clean those areas which may be holding those type of wastes. ie poly filters, sponges, etc.
David
 
I need to pickup some of the purigen stuff for my 15 gallon quarantine tank. How exactly does it work, and what does it remove?

The 15 gallon tank currently has one very unhappy flame angel waiting in there for a week or two to make sure she doesn't have marine ich or velvet.

The QTank has no skimmer, thus the water is filthy despite healthy weekly water changes.
 
I think this says it best.
http://www.seachem.com/products/product_pages/Purigen.html

Bill at Neptune calls it "a skimmer in a bag"

And don't believe the manufacture when they say that you can rejuvenate it buy soaking in bleach water, I tried and it didn't seem to work too well and I was scared to put anything that soaks in bleach for 24 hour back into my tank!!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top