High Nitrate in my 55g

[Romulan]

Hi I recently removed the balls from my wet/dry, that was about the same time I added a remora skimmer... I also started adding Chromaplex to supplement my mushroom polyps.. All my readings were good so I wont bother listing them, but the only thing that was unusually high was my Nitrate reading, it was 80mg to 100mg!! I regularly do water changes and am about to do two more (water changes are usually 12 gallons every three weeks). I have the feeling that the high nitrate might be caused by me adding this chromaplex (kent marine) since ive never had problem with nitrates before. My fish one clown one red hawk and one coris wrasse are not really affected and are eating well..

So what is my problem is it:

removal of the bio balls

new skimmer

addition of chromaplex

or is it something else?

 

[liquid]

Are you running any sort of filter pad material that might trap detritus?

Do you have a sandbed in your tank? If so, what is it?

Have you checked your additive for nitrates?

Maybe if you'd give us some additional information on your system, this would help.

Shane

 

[Romulan]

Ok I just did my water change and will check it again tommorow to see if it went down.. I do have a sand bed with a small mixture of live sand, and i have a filter pad in my wet dry filter.. one by the hose that brings the water in and then one thick pad before the water enteres the pump return.

Since you responded to my question let me ask you also, is it better for me to add live sand or just the regular sand that they sell in 5 pound bags?


My tank includes just those three fish that I mentioned, one small long tentacled anemone, and one rock that has mushroom pollyps. I also have alot of live rock in the tank, although the live rock is not too "live" since its the cheap crap that i bought from my lfs.

 

[liquid]

You will want to seed your sandbed with some sort of live sand or detrivore kit. Inland Reef has these kinds of kits from what I recall. You could also talk to Premium Aquatics and get some of their "grunge" from their liverock tanks as I've heard some good stuff about that. Also, you might want to contact Harbor Aquatics and get some grunge out of their liverock cure tanks too.

hth

Shane

 

[4angel]

There could be a number of things coming to play. The Bio Balls could have been your primary source for denitrifying bacteria which in turn would have reduce your nitrates in the past. However now that there gone what is going to this job. The live rock in your tank would now have to do it. How much rock do you have in the tank. and lets not forget the sand. It would be Ideal to have some sand from an established tank added to your bagged store bought sand to build up some de nitrifying bacteria. As soon as these things are taken care of I would consider removing the filter media. get rid of the pads nitrates love a place to congregate and thrive. Don't over feed or add food supplements. My personal opinion with corals like shrooms xena and the like is that I wont add any supplements. These guys are photo synthetic,not demanding at all. I would recommend stocking up on live rock and a large enough sand bed.
_________________
Mercedes Vehicles

 

[Romulan]

Fourangel thank you for your response.. I was surprised when you told me to get rid of the filter media, right now i have one of the (marineland) bonded filter pad, and the 4 inch thick sponge that comes with the wet/dry sump... Should I get rid of both?

 

[4angel]

I don't know how stocked your tank is with biological filtration. I think you mentioned you have one rock in the tank and if your sand is minimal as well, I wouldn't remove it yet. I would just be very diligent in cleaning and replacing the filter media. Making sure you don't skip a water change. A lot of stuff just stays on this material i.e.: uneaten fish food detritus build up that even with the rinsing all this will still = poor water quality. I think build up the natural rock ,sand and then get rid of the media.
_________________
Battlestar Galactica Forum

 

[Anonymous]

I would like to add several things to what you have been told. Nitrate is the end product of a wet-dry system. To reduce nitrates to nitrogen, you need an anarobic bacteria that can live in liverock or a sandbed. If you don't break the nitrates down because your sand bed is too small or non-existant, you need to set up an export mechanism. This can be water changes, macro algae in a sump, or both. If you have high nitrates, its because you are producing them faster than your export system can remove them.
Removing filter pads and bioballs keeps material from accumulating on them and decomposing into nitrates. Keep the material moving to where it can be exported, and reduce nitrate input by slowing your feed rates.

 

[aquarist=broke]

I'd like to chime in and mention that ever since I added an anemone, the bio-load really increased. I'd suspect that the anemone(feeding habits, waste, etc.) probably isn't helping in keeping nitrates down, assuming the sandbed and rock are maxxed out to what they can handle. More rock(cured) together with a deeper sandbed would probably make a big difference.

That filter pad needs to go too.

 

[seahawkjohnny]

for one thing....the bio balls and the Live rock do the same thing...break ammonia down to nitrites, than nitrites to nitrates, this is normal....so right now you can either get rid of the nitrates with water changes, or with a refugium with caluerpra, this macro algae will consume the nitrates as food, and than as it grows you remove some of it, and since it s always growing it will replenish it self

 

[esmithiii]

A Deep Sand Bed (DSB) is the best way to reduce and control nitrates. I recommend that you add sand until you have 4-6" throughout the bottom of the tank.

Filter media is not bad if it is changed regularly.

You should shoot for 55-100 pounds of liverock in your system. The liverock and sand bed combination works wonders for me.

A refugium with caulerpa is also a good way to export nutrients.

Ernie

 

[Zagan]

A wet/dry filter won't process nirates as the water is far too oxygenated for the denitrifing animals to live in, a wet/dry filter will process ammonia and nirite though.

So you will always get a build up of nirates in your tank.

You could use a denitrification filter, the dear way...

or

you could use a Deep Sand Bed of 3-4 so inches this should alow the denitrifing animals enough space to grow and move around your tank.

denitrifing animals mustn't have any oxygen what so ever or they won't process the nirate in the water, they turn it into CO2 which rises up in the water till it comes to the surface and then it is released into the air.

 

[Anonymous]

Zagan,

The anarobic bacteria you are talking about turn nitrates into nitrogen. CO2 can't physically come from nitrates.

 

[Garry thomas]

Angel bio balls are a good wet + dry filter, but they do NOT possess the ability for denitrafication to happen, they are way to oxygenated

 

[Anonymous]

Romulan:

first, i'd stop using the chromaplex-it really isn't necessary, and just belongs in that huge group of 'snake oil' products that your tank will do just fine w/out :wink:

a nice deep sand bed is one of the easiest ways to eliminate nitrates from your system, (along with proper maintenance,-water changes, skimming, elimination of dirt traps, etc.)

you should also make sure that your source water, or newly made sw, does not contain nitrates.

adding more rock will not necessarily add more filtration.most rock amounts in peoples tanks are not fully colonized by the nitrifying bacteria that break the ammonia down anyway-live rock has an incredible amount of surface area-you can only grow the amount of bacteria you have food for :wink: -adding more surface area for them really does nothing to increase their population. :wink:

lr will also provide some denitrification, though usually not equal to the production of nitrate by the aerobic bacteria that live closer to, and on the rock surface.(the inner 'core' of the rock does provide very slow water diffusion which fosters an anoxic environment for the denitrifying bacteria)

as long as you make sure to remove munge by regularly cleaning those pads, don't overfeed,use a good skimmer,and have a healthy sand bed,- and use nitrate free source water,with no bogus additives-you should be fine-just be patient-it takes a few months for a sb to really kick in :wink:

 

[Anonymous]

HIgh nitrates are less inherently problematic than indicitive of generally poor water quality. Large (> 50%) water changes will help to bring them down but probably more importantly will get rid of other toxins that you aren't measuring.

Next, a deep sand bed would really help. Ideally you should have this in the aquarium, but it might be a bit late. You can try building it up gradually, but you might be better off starting a refugium and put a deep sand bed in that and then grow a huge wad of macro-algae and manually harvest that about once a month.

It will take a long time for your nitrates to go to zero, but once this has been established it should be pretty stable.


Again, eliminate all mechanical detritus traps.

 

[Romulan]

Thank you all for your responces.

 

[MarkO1]

Romulan,
I too was fighting a nitrate problem (50 ppm) in my 90 gal. reef. My sand bed was (is) averages 4", but more important than the depth of the bed was the grain size (about 1/8" to 1/16" average diametrer). I notice that it takes about 2" or so of that size to become anaerobic, but only about 1/2" of sugar grain size (as in my refug.)
My solution was to add a refugium. My 10 gal refugium brought my nitrates to around 1.0 ppm in about 30 days.
I've also learned that water changes do not really have much of an effect on your nitrates. Sucking out the detritus in my sump and turkey basting my live rock seemed much more effective.
good luck.
_________________
Greg Hastings Tournament Paintball