nitrates driving me crazy

Here are some things that are known to reduce nitrate in no particular order. Copied from a post I made to another thread. Not everything may apply to your tank.

1. Change your substrate from crushed coral to sand
2. Add more rock to your tank. (live or dry)
3. Get rid of the wet-dry filter and the bioballs.
4. Convert the wet-dry to a refugium with a deep sand bed.
5. Add chaeto algae in your refugium for nitrate export. Light the chaeto on a reverse ligut cycle.
6. Increase flow in the tank.
7. Eliminate all mechanical filters. My only mechanical filter is my chaeto. Any trapped material is consumed by pods and bristle worms.
8. Eliminate any bio-wheels in your system. They are great nitrate factories.
9. Reduce feeding. Feed every other day and reduce the amount.

 

I wanted to say thanks to everyone who helped by giving me some ideas. After all the work yesterday, blowing off and rearanging the rock, i am happy to report that the tank looks much better. The water is clearer and by moving some of the rock to the wet dry below and decreasing the rock in the DT I can see more of my fish. All the corals look great and everyone seems fine. Even the starfish seem happier as I have seen the bristle star for the first time in months.

I am going to do another water change this afternnon, about 5 gallons, and then retest time. I will post results later.

thanks again for all your help my tank (both of them as my 34 gallon got 15 pounds of rock added) looks better.

 

Great, cant wait to see your test results. Do keep in mind that you will not see a decrease in NO3 over night.





luna

 

well saw a slight drop in Nitrates after a couple of water changes but not what I was hoping for. The corals seem to be opening more and seem happier but I am not happy as Nitrates still around 40ppm. More orange then red but still not where they need to be. I went out to look at a used sump and some lights to upgrade mine with and ended up buying the entire system from the guy including a 180 gallon tank, stand and canopy. If you cann't beat em go bigger. Look for my 180 gallon build thread.

 

So, nothing has worked?



luna

 

Not that has helped significantly. It started to show signs of improvement but still high on nitrates. WhenI tested earlier had a red color on the test. Has dropped to orange with a red tint. Doing another 8 gallon change later today. I blow off the rock before my water change to try and get the "stuff in the water to be drained and or filtered. I clean/replace the mechanical filters every other day. and both days on the weekends. But still have the high nitrates. My new tank will have a refugium to fight this. Have alot of work to do though before it is up and running. I will keep plugging along on the 55 until the 180 is ready to go.

 

Nitrates are still driving me crazy too. I've done 40 gallons of water changes in 2 weeks on my 75 and the test is still orange / red.

Good luck on the 180 man.

 

Thanks. I figure if I am going to build a rufugium I would go bigger. Very excited about the new tank.

 

I'm curious, do any of you guys have Bio Balls in your systems?



luna

 

No. I removed mine over a period of time and replaced with live rock. I heard that the biao balls can produce nitrates. I spent about 2 months removing them a little at a time and when I rearanged my rock I put some in where the bio balls were.