Nitrate question

all you can do is do water changes daily it will drop eventually

 

He said he had bioballs. Do you cleans those periodically? They are known to be nitrate holders.

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Yep, just cleaned about 1/4 of them today. Don't want to risk starting a new cycle by taking out too many bacteria and all that.

 

bioballs are really not a good filtration method they store nitrates and they release back to the tank i would get rid of them and use live rock instead and do water changes to get the nitrates to go down daily or every other day till they reach 0

 

To make sure I'm understanding this, are you suggesting ditching the bioballs and going to something like live rock rubble (would have to use rubble or something of the like due to small space)? Oh, and I ordered some biopellets to get that started, so thanks for the recommendation.

 

Update: After a few weeks of 20%/wk WC's and a week of 1 bag Purigen and Biopellets, I now have 0 Nitrate (at least as far as the test kit is concerned). Thanks all!

 

good to hear ;D do you see any good side effects since it has been lowered so much?

 

My water had a nice bacterial bloom for about 2 days after I started the Biopellets, and the algae has taken off (coralline and not so great others) like a rocket. I've ordered a CUC from reefcleaners,com to help out. I tried reefscavengers.com, but soon realized that was going to be a nightmare (story soon to be posted on that one once/if I get my money back), so no negative side effects.

 

wow sounds like fun but you will really like reefcleaners ;D

 

Are you kidding? The order hasn't even shipped yet and I can't rave enough about the customer service.