I need some help with my nitrates

[Hondatek]

So yesterday was my pwc day. I did my normal 25 percent. This is the first week that my nitrates havent went to 5 after the change. They are at almost 20 now. I'm changing another 10 gallons today to help but I need to change something to get back on track. My idea was to slowly remove the filter floss from my hob and fill it with big peices of live rock to make it more of a natural filtration. Right now my emperors have 2 pads in each and my canister has 1 basket of coarse and 1 basket of fine floss and carbon bag and 3 baskets of ceramic rings and live rock. Will doing that help or hurt the tank? It's a 75 gallon with 380 gallons of filter on it 200 from can and 90 for each emporer. Thanks

[carey]

How often do you clean out the canister? They are notorious for holding onto nitrates. I cleaned mine every week or every other week and had 0 nitrates after a time.

[Hondatek]

I cleaned out yesterday when I added the lr and rings . I added the can 2 weeks ago so it's still fairly new

[carey]

It sounds like you are doing proper maintanence.

Are you an overfeeder? Has anything changed in the last week, any new fish or anything? Do you run a skimmer by chance? I'm not sure of the general consensus on them helping with nitrates but I ran one with my canister and I feel it helped me get to the 0 Nitrates.

I would agree another PWC is in order, just hopefully the trates won't go back up again so quickly.

Good luck.

[Hondatek]

I might over feed but I have a porcupine puffer and I watch him eat everything I put in there. Didn't add fish. And I'm using a seaclone skimmer. Would adding the live rock in the hobs and removing floss be ok it was recommended to me by a guy at a lfs. He is very smart and I have had time where i talk to him for a hour about fish so I trust him but still would like other opinions

[carey]

It's very common for people to put the LR in their filter compartments. I did that for awhile on my BioCube. Didnt do it with any of my other tanks though so I can't speak from any experience other than to say other people do it with success.

I would still keep some sort of floss in there though, polish up the water some.

[Hondatek]

Ok I was thinking about leaving the floss in the can since that pumps the most. It shouldn't cause a cycle if i remove slowly right?

[carey]

Nope, it shoudln't if you do it slowly. Since you have 3 filters running just do it one at a time maybe a week or 2 apart. Just make sure you give the bacteria a chance to get routed in the filter before you go to the next filter.

[Hondatek]

Ok what I was going to do is put all the floss in one emporer and put rock in the other then remove one pad a week in the other one each week adding rock at the same time

[carey]

Sounds like a plan. Just don't take out too much media at once and you'll be fine.

[hackteck]

you know it says to strive for 0 but 20 nitrates really isnt all that bad

[carey]

LOL. I know, but it's like a challenge to me at least. I'm down to 5 in my tanks, looking to get back to 0.

[Hondatek]

Yea I know 20 is not too bad but I would like to keep it around 10 especially after the wc