Breeding Clownfish/Nitrate Problem!

[sstanle4]

My boyfriend and I are doing research with the biology department at school trying to mate a pair of clownfish. Here lately, we cannot seem to keep our nitrates down. We check levels every Tuesday and Thursday and every time we check, everything is normal except nitrates (which stay anywhere from 30-60). We only have the two clowns, live rock, and live gravel in the 30 gallon tank. We do 8-10 (sometimes 12-14) gallon water changes if nitrates are above 10 or 15. We vacuum the gravel to get all the gunk from it, but nitrates are still super high. What can we do to reduce them? And what is causing this? Help?

Checked today around 12:30
pH: 8.1
ammonia: 0
nitrItes: 0
nitrAtes: 40

Checked again after 10 gallon water change around 3:00
pH: 8.1
ammonia: 0
nitrItes: 0
nitrAtes: 30

 

[crister13]

Keep doing water changes. Also, I would switch to sand substrate. Much better. What filtration do you have??? You're probably over feeding. I feed my fish every three days.

 

[Phranque]

Are you using RODI water? How old is the tank? And overfeeding is a possibility if you don't have a CUC. Are you showing any algae in the tank?

 

[bigben2057]

Are you using RODI water? How old is the tank? And overfeeding is a possibility if you don't have a CUC, but that tends to raise phosphates faster than nitrates. Are you showing any algae in the tank?

+1 i bet this is the problem

 

[AquaRick]

Get rid of the gravel. It doesn't work in saltwater well. Detritus settles within the gravel rocks and creates even more nitrates.

If $ is an issue, you can get pool filter sand or regular play sand. Rinse the sand like crazy before you add it to the tank.

If you go with live aragonite sand, don't rinse. Just add it all to your tank.

 

[sstanle4]

We've been doing these big water changes for about a month now. We have two hang-on Penguin 350's. We are not using RODI water because the biology department is funding our research. We mix our own and check the salinity about every 2 weeks just to make sure its where it needs to be. The tank is 9 months old... We do have a clean up crew; a few hermit crabs. I forget they're there because of all the rock. Haha. We are probably over feeding. In our research, we found that to get them ready to start breeding we need to feed them 2 times a day at the same time every day. So we put an automatic feeder on it so we wouldn't miss feeding them. But it's only feeding how much they eat. None is being wasted.

 

[Phranque]

Well, the twin 350's could be part of your problem. How often are you cleaning them out? Any food/detritus build-up in those is just going to become a nitrate factory.

 

[sstanle4]

We clean them every two weeks.. We have a carbon bag and a biomax bag in each of them. All rated for a 50-70 gallon tank.

 

[Beengirl]

We clean them every two weeks.. We have a carbon bag and a biomax bag in each of them. All rated for a 50-70 gallon tank.

I would increase cleaning these. I entirely clean out my canister filter every week. I'm thinking the gravel might be contributing too. Gravel is extremely difficult to get entirely clean, even if vacuumed well. The stuff that stays, rots and becomes nitrates.

 

[sstanle4]

We'll start cleaning them more often then. How can we change the gravel to sand without stressing the fish?

 

[Beengirl]

The difficulty is going to be that a lot( but not all) of your BB is on the gravel. You would need to remove half from one side of tank, add sand to that side, then wait a week or two and then remove the other half and replace with sand. When you add sand, take a cup full and put cup all way down to the bottom before pouring it out and turn off any powerheads you have going during this. That should hopefully cut down in the cloudiness. For a 30g, you could get 2 10# bags of live sand and you would be fine since clowns don't dig in the sand. I think live sand is about $10-14 for 10# at Petco. I only suggest the 2 separate bags to make it easier for you- you could always get one 20# bag and separate it, but keep it in a bucket of sw and keep wet cuz once the bag is opened, you'll have evaporation. When you clean your filters, just make sure you don't replace any material during this same time. That would probably be too much BB lost at once. Good luck!!

 

[crister13]

I would remove the filter pads entirely. Unless cleaned daily to every other day they actually speed up the break down of the particles they catch.

 

[Phranque]

Why not just take it out and make it a bare-bottom tank?? Clowns don't need substrate to breed.....

 

[Rutrag]

I know you said you are not using RODI due to a funding issue. That leads me to believe you are using tap water. If that's the case, have you checked the nitrates from the tap. You may actually be adding to the issue with the water changes if so.

 

[Phranque]

I know you said you are not using RODI due to a funding issue. That leads me to believe you are using tap water. If that's the case, have you checked the nitrates from the tap. You may actually be adding to the issue with the water changes if so.

I was partially thinking the same thing. In the OP, they show a 25% drop in nitrates with a 33% water change, so there is likely some in the tap water. But, with the nitrates as high as they have, and showing a considerable reduction with pwc's, it's more tank issue than water issue. It just means they'll never be able to get to 0, but with a FOWLR, 0 isn't necessary..... they just need to get the rapid growth under control.

 

[sstanle4]

If we removed the gravel entirely, would that cause any problems with the tank? I know there’s bacteria and stuff in there we need.

I think we’ve checked the nitrates from the tap before and it was like 0-5.

As far as breeding goes, does anyone know if the male continues to twitch after they’ve become a “mated pair”? Our male still twitches… A LOT!

We’ve been trying to get them to spawn for about 8 months now but we are not having any success. Is there anything we can do to speed up the process?

 

[Sniperhank]

It depends on how much rock you have in there. If you are following the lbs per gallon concept, then you wouldn't need the substrate at all.

 

[Pizza101]

Put on some Barry White at night! That should speed up the breeding process.. Also I would look around at your LFS for RODI water mine charges me .25 a gallon all you'll need is a couple of buckets from home Depo and you'll be good to go. If its a cost thing cut somewhere else but who wants to breath contaminated air?

 

[Hocky puck]

Feeding twice a day? Bad even if they are eating all the food they are still pooping more. Those nutrients are magically disappearing. Think of it as a diet calories in - Calories used = ? Excess calories weight gain. More used then eaten weight loss. The nitrates will feed on the extra food you put in whether its in form of flakes or poop. Also what r u feeding?

 

[Sniperhank]

I only feed my fish twice a week. There isn't a need to feed twice a day. Since you have an autofeeder, your food is probably flake or pellet. All of this food is prob just rotting in your gravel bed and causing the nitrates. Kill the autofeeder and lessen feeding. Manually remove any algae you can and siphon the gravelbed.