It never ends for me.....

[MT79]

but I turned off my bio-wheel today, maybe I will see some improvement.....

I would not remove the Bio-wheel until ammonia and nitrite are 0. It will only lead to a new, mini-cycle adding to your existing issues. You need to sit back and let nature take it's course. Do not add any new stock to the aquarium until parameters are good, and steady for a couple weeks. Also be careful not to overfeed.

My sister-in-law tried to tell me RO water is just double filtered water? Dunno how true that is....

Well RO is just that. The water is pushed through a semi-permeable RO membrane removing 95-99% of the impurities. A DI unit will remove the rest. RO water will have much lower TDS levels.

guess consider the bristle worms part of my tank and be careful

I think at this point they could only help. They are good reef janitors.

 

[melosu58]

I agree that I would leave the bio wheel till your tank cycles. Then once it does just remove and put in sump or back of tank. I was looking through this thread for how much LR do you have. OK I see it on your info. Let me change what I said. I would maybe leave the bio wheel in till you get the proper LR in your tank. You are really short of the 1.5-2 lbs per gallon that you need. That might be the problem here. 35 lbs for a 55 is not enough. You need to double what you have. The bio wheel will help to break down ammonia and nitrites and you`ll need to do weekly PWC`s till you can get proper amount of LR. I know this might not be what you want to hear but it is IME and IMO a big factor in your tank. I hope all goes well.

 

[MT79]

I would maybe leave the bio wheel in till you get the proper LR in your tank. You are really short of the 1.5-2 lbs per gallon that you need

Melosu, FWIW I've saw tanks that use as little as .75lbs per gallon be successful. More porous rock, ie. Fiji, can be used in a 1-1 ratio with aquarium volume with out any issues. Having more though definitely will not hurt.

ICEnVy what type of LR do you have? You are right about at the bare minimum with out the wheel depending on the rock...


Happy Reefing

 

[melosu58]

I agree if it is a very pourus rock but still and you said it the more the better. Being at 75% is cutting it close but yes you are right it depends on the LR.

 

[ICEnVy]

I am so confused now lol. I have 15lbs of fiji and about 20 or so lbs of carribbean, and about 15-20lbs of LR that I made myself (2 are already seeded from the other LR and looking really good). So about 1lb per gallon of various rocks. I just found out I can get RO water from Safeway, but do you think it is actually good? Oh and I don't have a sump- I don't know the first things about those lol My ex-fiance started this thing and left it with me, so I am just learning as I go.....

 

[melosu58]

OK I was going by your info button that said you only have 35 lbs. That is a good starting point but you could use more if you get the chance. If you can update your info. Thanks

 

[MT79]

I just found out I can get RO water from Safeway, but do you think it is actually good?

It's hard to say with out at least a TDS meter to make sure the filters are replaced periodically and working properly. A test for Ammonia, nitrate, and phosphate may be a good idea as well (High phosphate will cause algae blooms) A local fish store may be willing to test the water for you if you bring a sample. FWIW there are many people who use RO water from stores.
As far as LR goes, your pretty good. If the nitrate problem continues after the other parameters are back in order(ammonia and nitrite at 0), I would try removing the bio-wheel. HTH

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

As MT79 noted, you can test the Safeway RO water yourself and find out if it's good or not. Ammonia, phosphates and nitrates are what I'd be looking for. Just make sure that you test each batch you get. It might test perfect one week, but test bad the next week. All depends when (and if!) they change the filters.

One thing to note... you're doing a LOT of stuff all at once to the tank. Like troubleshooting any system, try to just do one thing at a time and see what happens. Take a guess at what might make the biggest impact and do that, and only that. If you make a bunch of different changes and end up with the results you want, you don't really know what change it was that worked!