Help with ammonia an nitrate

[jeffaquarius]

I'll have to look into that Jeff and I just started looking into ro systems it's gonna be awhile before I get any corals I want to have everything as perfect as possible before I make that move.

Sounds like a plan. I later decided to get an ro system for convenience and then later I got the add-on di filter when I was ready for corals.

 

[earlysteven]

Thank you Jeff and Carey I appreciate y'all's help so much and will be doing a huge water change tomorrow

 

[earlysteven]

Ok so I was looking up some stuff and saw that bio balls can produce nitrates if there in your corner overflow is this true? And it also says it's bad to have bio balls for a reef aquarium how would I go about switching them out with something else and what?

 

[BigRedsReefs10]

Ya bio ball type filtration is more of a fw thing. The LR in your tank should provide all the biological filtration you need. You can supplement with chemical/mechanical but flow across your LR is the main source of your filtration

 

[earlysteven]

Ok that makes since

 

[earlysteven]

So I did a 30 percent water change and of course no luck with the nitrates they only dropped to 80 but my ammonia went back down to 0 .

 

[earlysteven]

So I threw some carbon media in and down to 40 ppm nitrates plus the water looks amazing . So makes me a little bit happier

 

[Jessilyn86]

We just bought a 60g tank a few weeks ago from someone that already had it established and we have had the same problems as well. When you moved the tank and stir up the sand, all the organic matter that has been sitting in the sand gets stirred up and causes a spike in nitrates and possibly anything else that shows more than its suppose to.

Do you have fish or corals in your tank yet? The tank we bought came with a kleins butterfly fish, arrow crab, and a falco hawk fish. The best way to get nitrates down is by doing water changes, but not too big cause you can shock the fish in the tank. Our nitrates are still super high and our fish are still doing great. It was recommended to us that we get some durable corals to help with ammonia levels and other spikes in your tank. We were able to buy a Kenya tree coral, blue mushrooms, green star polyp, and xenias. The carbon media was a good idea. We have bio balls in our over flow as we'll but we can't remove them since they contain good bacteria. Removing them would be like starting with a brand new tank and could stress or kill the fish living inside the tank.

Good luck with your tank!

 

[Bectan01]

Parts of this are not true - you can do as big a water change as you like, as long as you match temp, salinity (like you would normally anyway) there is no harm in doing say a 90% change. Whoever told you adding corals will help with ammonia is telling you stories, never heard that one before! I would say if you have elevated ammonia in your tank you shouldn't add anything until to get that under control. I personally wouldn't use bio balls in saltwater either and would look at swapping them out for say a live rock rubble instead...

 

[earlysteven]

I got rid of my bio balls and am getting live rock

 

[Bectan01]

Good move. A few more water changes and you'll be right on track

 

[earlysteven]

I sure hope so salt adds up lol

 

[melosu58]

In FW you could do a large water change as they could handle the change but in SW I have seen many a time that SW fish could not handle the big change. The Chemical makeup is not the same when you do a big change. Not disputing anyone just my experience. I don't ever do more than a 40% PWC.

 

[carey]

I regularly do 50% water changes on all my tanks and have not had any issues, fingers crossed*** lol A few smaller changes is always a better option but if you really need to clean up the water a larger one shouldnt make too too much of a difference. This is my experience, your mileage may vary.

 

[earlysteven]

Ya I'm going to do a 30 percent and that's 50 gallons lol so that's pretty much my max but it will be with all r/o water

 

[jeffaquarius]

With ro water you will never resolve your high nitrate even how large your pwc is.

 

[earlysteven]

How do you resolve it then Jeff?

 

[jeffaquarius]

If your tank is for fish only you just have to deal with higher nitrate of 40 ppm. Otherwise, an ro/di is the answer. However, since you still have the old substrate from where you bought the tank, your nitrate will stay high until the die off has settled down.

 

[earlysteven]

I've had the aquarium for three months . And have Ben using tap water that's why I said a big wc with ro/di water

 

[jeffaquarius]

Since you have only 2 clown fish and the rests are mushrooms, I would replace all the water but remove the fish before putting the new ro/di salt water with the same parameter as the old. Acclimate the fish to new water before returning to tank. This reduces stress to fish.