My Situation (LONG)

Hi Larry,
I also think you need to give more information on your setup. Exactly what filtration are you using? How deep is your crushed coral bed? It sounds like you have setup a fowlr system. Fish only with live rock. As John stated earlier, you might be starting over. I would for sure add a protien skimmer. You need to figure out the nitrate source to be able to cure it "IE" Your tap water and coral bed. I would only have enough cc to barley cover the areas of the tank you can vaccum with a gravel siphon. You need to do multiple water changes and siphon detritus. You should be using RO water for your salt mix and also pure RO for top off of evaporation.Also blow off the live rock with a turkey baster or power head. This is maintenence to be done regulary. As John also said ......you need to change carbon regulary so it too dosn't become a nitrate factory in your filter. With all the water changes and such(overstocked tank) I'm afraid your tank will start to cycle again. Be sure to test for ammonia. Good luck to your livestock. Let us know whats happining with your tank.
szidls

 

Hi Larry!

I'm also a newbie with high nitrates. I've been told its because of using an  old sand bed which I moved to my home after buying an existing  120 gl set up. .Hopefully before too long I will have the sand bed changed out. I dread doing this though because I will have to have the entire tank broken down.

I've done lots of water changes and my nitrate and phosphate levels don't change a lot. When they drop after a water change they usually come back up pretty quickly.  I have a DSB of 3-4 in with sand. I've be told that using crushed coral will only cause nitrates to go higher because it traps the deitrus so I'm staying away from CC. More and more people seem to be going bottomless especially if they have a large bioload. My bioload is also very high.( A positive to a high bio-load would be a good excuse to get even a larger tank. )This allows easier clean up of deitrus since there is no CC for it to get trapped in. I would think you would definately want a protein skimmer and good water movement. Adding power heads to my tank seemed to help and also adding cheato (algae) to my sump.  

I don't know about changing out 100% of the water at one time. It seems like that could be mighty hard on the livestock. The others here can give you better info on the water changes.  I understand that snails and shrimp are much more sensitive to the higher nitrates than the fish. I have very few snails left in mine.  

Any way, that's the experience that I have had.
Good luck with it all!

Cindy