so frustrated with my 7 year old tank

[shavo]

any plant life in your sump? bubble calurpa, cheato?

that is my only question

 

[Anonymous]

Crushed Coral hasn't been all that popular in a long time, which is prolly why we don't hear much about it. The large size of the crushed coral makes perfect nooks and crannies for detritus to collect and can easily become a nitrate factory. Also, the sand bed critters, one of the points in having a DSB, don't live very will in crushed coral.

 

[Anonymous]

Crushed Coral hasn't been all that popular in a long time, which is prolly why we don't hear much about it. The large size of the crushed coral makes perfect nooks and crannies for detritus to collect and can easily become a nitrate factory. Also, the sand bed critters, one of the points in having a DSB, don't live very will in crushed coral.

See, I am beginning to disagree with this theory.

I dont have a sump, and I have cc. I never vacuum, and my trates are at zero.

I see life in the cc all the way down to the bottom (ill take a pic) in the form of bristles, those tiny starfish (I always forget their name) and other life.

See my thread on this subject, I dont want to hijack this other posters thread...this isnt the sump, ya know!

 

[Anonymous]

[

I dont have a sump, and I have cc. I never vacuum, and my trates are at zero.

I am curous how many years this tank has been running? I too used to keep a tanks bed of larger grains like CC and no vacumming, and it always had zero nitrates. I only had that tank up for about a 1.5 years at most though before I took it down to move. I have always suspected that one it got to be 5 years or so, I would have had problems with it.

 

[Anonymous]

[

I dont have a sump, and I have cc. I never vacuum, and my trates are at zero.

I am curous how many years this tank has been running? I too used to keep a tanks bed of larger grains like CC and no vacumming, and it always had zero nitrates. I only had that tank up for about a 1.5 years at most though before I took it down to move. I have always suspected that one it got to be 5 years or so, I would have had problems with it.

Ill answer it there...

 

[CTurtleGirl]

My sg is 1.025, I have excellent coraline growth. I have not yet tested for copper. I will buy a test tommarow. As far as more frequent water changes for the past month I have been doing weekly 25% water changes and before that it was every two weeks. I have been using ro/di for water changes for a few months now so you would think if it was a bad water source and I have done many many water changes with the new water, that it would have gotten better and not worse. I am removing the sandbed on tuesday and I am just putting back in a small amount for astethic purposes after it has been cleaned. I can see all the nasty stuff in the bed with only the top half inch not nasty. I will keep you posted on if this solves my problem. Thanks!

CTG