nitrates....

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Eileen van Zyldob

Aquarium Advice Regular
Joined
Jul 27, 2012
Messages
68
hi guys I really need urgent advice...we bought over a tank about 8 months ago.the nitrates were high when we got the tank and been struggling since then to get it down.its on 50mg/l hectic I know. its a standard 1.2m tank about 200l ifbi am not mistaken.

fish
4 clowns
2 chromis
1 pajama caradinal
1 spotted surgeon
1 cleaner wrasse
1golden back goby
1 lawnmower blenny

corals
3 leather coral (2 different types)
1 hammer coral
1 moon coral
1 star polyp rock
xenia
1 open membrane
green polyps yellow polyps
1 torch coral
and a mushroom

the hammer coral and torch coral doing very bad.can see the white part in which the coral grows.the open membrane also not opening as it used to.

I had a few beadlets in for a day but after doing research I got rid on them.

I have red sea nitrate and phosphate remover been through 2 bottels already as well as seachems Prime.

glass anemones and red hair algae growing like mad.

have reef octupus skimmer and some sand substrate in sump as well as plant that I got that lives on phosphates which I got at marine shop. do weekly water changes also tried every second week no difference. also clean out the skimmer bowl daily.

PLEASE HELP !!!!

attached photos of tank and sump
 

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How much No3/po4 remover and prime do you dose per day? Prime will do nothing to reduce the nutrients. It will only detoxify it temporarily and should should be used for fish stress or fear of ammonia/nitrite/nitrate poisoning. 2 bottles of RSM No3/Po4 remover (carbon dosing) in 8 months is way too much if it has even been that long. Overdosing that stuff would be creating problems rather than fixing them. Ive used it, but in moderation and it works good. How efficient has your skimmer been? Carbon dosing usually sends skimmers into overdrive if your tank is heavy in nutrients.
 
skimmer is efficient can see its working.clean daily.when dosing it works well otherwise only works lightly.
 
How much are you feeding? Do you have bio-balls? Also, the pads in the sump look pretty dirty. How often do you rinse them out (or your sock if you have one) in tap water? That could easily be the root cause.
 
What are your nitrates reading at? I would break up the RSM dosing to 2ml daily and like coralline said check your filtration to make sure nothing there is breeding the nitrate.
 
Try getting some macro algea like dragons breath and cheato and mangroves that should help put them in the sand in ur sump
 
Quick question on the mangroves. Do you burry them in the sand bed or expose the roots!
 
I've seen them held in place by pieces of live rock in the sump but u will need to trim them and they don't reproduce the way dragons breath and cheato do
 
have two plants that are in sump not sure of the names though.I am taking my hammer and tourch in to the marine shop to see if they improve there for a week.the aponge we replaced last week and rinse out about twice a week. sont have bio balls , different marine supplier uses hair curlers in his tank and adviced we do same.as they do the same as bio balls a a fraction of the price. nitrate reads at 50 currently
 
Bio balls hold the nitrates I'm cycleing and mine are extremely high but that's what the macro in the fuge survives on it eats it and releases oxygen and other important nutrients back into the water I don't have bio balls and no aquariaiest I kno has them all heathy reefs
 
Start off with the basics and work your way up. What are your parameters? (all of them-ammo,trites,trates,phosphate,calc,mag,etc) do you use rodi water or tap water? How much are you feeding of what food? Water changes? With rodi water or tap? Topping off with what type of water? These may seem like pointless pieces of info but it helps us to pinpoint the exact cause of your problems. Also i would most def take out every last sponge/filter pad and give them a solid cleaning
 
Yea huma, I agree with you cause tap will add a lot to your water as well I use ro but I'm cycling that's y mine are high I added 85lbs live rock nearly 2 weeks ago I have macro to eat up and use the byproduct of the cycleing so hopefully my parameters don't get so high and have to wait as long before I can seed my tank with mysis and pods
 
ok will post all parameters hopefully tonight except phosphat.in sa phosphate testes are pathetically expensive u hardly get them. only use ro water no tap water whatsoever as we had a bummer with that in Malawi tank. feed once a day 1 block of ocean nutrition prime reef. water change 1nce a week 10% with ro water. topups also with ro water daily. there is only one filter spnge and geta cleaned out at the very least 1nce a week. was at marine shop took my hammer and torch in and popped in again this afternoon , looking much beter.he gave me a bacteria thing that I should try says it will work in couple of days...
 
What's your tanks specific gravity? It may be low.

The curlers aren't doing your tank any favors. Their job is to turn ammonia into nitrate and they do that very well. The first step is to remove them. Bio media in a reef should always be live rock and sand. Anything else will cause high nitrates. I've never needed them in reef tanks.

You're doing everything right with regards to water. I'd really like to know your salt level though. Your nitrates are high but you're corals shouldn't be that bad off. You have nice rock, a good skimmer and a good sump. Pulling out the curlers will likely make the biggest difference. I would also recommend using a 250ml jar of Purigen in The Bag. It'll last for years and years with recharging and help draw out excess DOCs. I hope this helps. :)
 
thanks will then remove the curlers and check what it does.shot.not sure what you mean by specific gravity. will post the parameters in a minute.just getting little one to sleep ;-)
 
Your salt content should be somewhere around 1.025... 1.032 is too high and could be causing some coral problems. 50 isnt really all that bad for trates. I mean we preach about it being as close to zero as possible but i dont believe 50 would cause too many problems
 
using read sea coral pro salt.and there it indicates that salanity should be 1, 030 kh should be 12.2 and ca 450.so somewhere something still aint right :-( getting so confused already.feels like a never ending battle
 
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