High nitrates and bio wheels

[MattW23]

I have a 40g with 40 lbs. of live rock. I am attempting to make the switch to reef. As of now, 15 hermits, 1 cleaner shrimp, 1 emerald, 2 pepermints, and 1 fire shrimp are the only inhabitants of my tank. My nitrates measured ~80mg/l a few minutes ago. I have a penguin 330 with bio wheels(2), I've read that it's good thing to get rid of these guys. My question is how? Do I yank them out or need to use a slower method??? Any other way to lower my NO3? Thanks for any help. matt

 

[2poor2reef]

Well, Matt, you're bioload is very low so that will make the transition easier. How long has your tank been set up with the live rock? If it's been at least six or eight weeks then I would do a two step shift, removing one biowheel and waiting three or four weeks and then removing the remaining wheel. As you decrease the biofilter in one place it should increase in the other, which is what you want. The goal is to establish you aerobic and anaerobic filters in adjacent strata. That way much of the nitrate can be converted without being freely circulated in the water column as it would be with a biowheel. Those are my thoughts anyway.

 

[Mabu]

My advice would be to get a CPR BakPak II protein skimmer and replace the penguin unit with this. Make sure you have plenty of substrate. This would make the tank more viable and lower-maintenance. Also be advised that if you have blue leg hermits, they'll likely end up attacking each other as well as snails and other stuff in the tank. I've learned that hermits can mess with corals.

 

[Impaler]

The only way to remove nitrates within the tank is to have anaerobic live sand or really big live rock. This just about requires 4-6" of substrate.You probably do not want to fill your display with that much, so put a sump/pump/skimmer setup in, and partition the sump off to house the dsb in one end with pump and skimmer in the other. I've got a 20 gal tank with a 15 gal below with a 6" deep bed of aragonite. It is still building, but the nitrates are not building up like they used to. I usually had to do a weekly 20% change to keep them in check, and now do a monthly 20% change at most. The best thing you can do right now is the sump with a skimmer. Skimmers remove exess bio matter that is otherwise taken through the nitrogen cycle. Hope this helps.
Dan

 

[Anonymous]

Take a look into a DSB--they really do some impressive work against nitrates.

I used to have an emporer 280 on my 37 gallon tank (single wheel & 3 small fish). At the time I had about 25 lbs of LR, my same crappy skimmer and my nitrates were hanging around 20ppm (2 month old tank)

I pulled the bio-wheel and within about 2 weeks, my nitrates dropped to about 10ppm. My sand bed has since matured nicely and my nitrates dropped to <5ppm at around the 6 month point.

So--I saw a definite improvement in nitrates. I saw no other change in chemistry--no NH4 or NO2. I left the emperor in the system to help circulate and to run carbon every now and then to polish the water (I got some powerheads now, so I only hang on the emperor occasionally).

Keep your pre-filters clean. Consider pulling any floss or filter media as well--you don't need them anymore and they're pulling organisms from the water that your corals would like to eat (plus they're expensive, especially if you replace them as often as they need to be).

Ty

[ October 23, 2001: Message edited by: tyoberg ]</p>