paramiters all out of wack! need help fast

No. and I just cleaned it really good. It is drying out now.

 

True, it does take time to get your params in check. If you change it too fast your tank might go into a fritz. Have you heard of people having problems with fish and corals dying after they bring them home from the lfs, to find out the lfs doesnt take care of the water quality and it shocks the fish when people dont acclimate nowhere near long enough. Like GuitarMan said about cleaning the rocks, it's a good idea. I do it about once a month. Make sure you dont have crap sitting at bottom under your bioballs.

 

I hear ya. I am just a bit nervous about the problem and trying to think of every option to solve the problem. Thanks for the help.

 

I do have a very thin layer of crap under the bio balls. I guess I will try and get that out today.

 

That does sound like a plan I have to check and see how much water that chamber holds.

 

I have ran many many many wet dry's and I have to this day ever had any issues with Nitrates , Those that I ever saw that did have a issue with NO3 the single most common denominator was they over fed with frozen meats and way to many flakes . A 7 oz. can of flakes will feed my tank for over a yr maybe 1.5 yrs I feed very very little and very seldom unless you have the skimmer for the huge over feedings . ? What ever you are feeding now stop for a week Nothing at all make them clean up the waste then feed about a pinch of good flakes three times a week. You can get some nitraxox ? I think its called a zeovite mineral that absorbs NO3 and Ammonia and NO2's and add a good air stone and pump to the wet dry , To kick the bacteria into high gear. I have never ever had any issues with NO3 and a wet dry bottom line is I do not feed my tanks to death , I do not run one now but I would in a minuet if dissolved Oxygen ever became a issue . I myself would not touch the wet dry ..

 

I don't like the bio balls after the protein skimmer. That's an aweful amount of them too. I quarantee that that is where the problem could be. You may and I say may want to pull all the bio balls out of there. Your setup is similar to a nano tank. Can the protein skimmer go on the other side? Let me explain.. The protein skimmer IMO is the core of the filtration system. You want any and all nitrates possible going through the skimmer and then discharged into the sump and then into the tank. Your working against yourself with this setup again IMO. I am not a genius at this so I'm open to suggestion but this is the way I see it.

OK if it was me I would get some cheato and put it in the first overflow chamber and get a clip on cheap home depot light with a 6500K 65W floodlight and run it opposite hours to your daylight or a fuge light if it is better. The cheato will eat the nitrates and phosphates.

I would redesign the chamber that has the bio balls with a stacking eggcrate tray with floss and on the bottom either about 1/4 the amount of bio balls you have now or even better yet some chopped up live rock so by the time the water gets to the sump it's totally strained and denitrated. This is where you have to use due diligence and keep the floss clean and little by little things will get better. You may get a mini cycle and/or an algae bloom but you'll be better off in the long run.

 

Skimmer always needs to be down stream of the bio tower.. Nitrates take a long time to build and will take as long to decline nothing I know of happens overnight in this hobby except a totally tank failure and death of all animals . Good things happen very slowly and the bad stuff happens very fast. NO3 are not a death sentence its just proof the nitrifying bacteria are alive and healthy and working at 100%

How old is the system and what animal load do you keep and what and how often are you feeding the tank ? Nitrates are the end results of fish waste and other carbon waste and food equals fish carbon waste. Everything Rots ): Thats why the Indians used to put dead fish in the seed holes when planting crops it was for the Nitrates .

Marinlin man I just noticed looks to me like your Bio Balls are totally submerged under water ? thats not doing you any good at all the whole point of a wet dry is all the bio balls being exposed to lots of air for oxygen exchange and they O2 reduces NO3 only room for so much gas to stay in water . I rather have my water holding 02 .

 

Tangster thanks for chiming in on this subject,

Here is the info you asked about. I now understand I am over feeding and that is one of the main problems.

My tank is 65 gallon with live rock and the following fish. has been established for over 1 year.

2 clowns (1.5")
1 six line wrasse (1")
1 fox face (3.5")
1 blue hippo tang (2")
several snails and blue leg hermit crabs, 1 cleaner shrimp, 2 emerald crabs and one sand sifting star fish.

I feed them one to two times a day about one cube of home made food. the cubes are about a 1/2" square if that helps.

I will not feed them for five days then I will only feed them a small amount of flake for 3 days a week and see how it goes from there.

 

I just hooked up the canister filter so that I could suck the crap of of the rocks. I got a lot off of them so I think that will help! As others have said time will tell.