Reduce nitrates

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90gallon

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
May 1, 2006
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Anyone have any suggestions on how to lower my nitrate levels in a 90 gallon aquarium with live rock? Right now the nitrate levels hangs around 10-20 ppm, but I would like to try and get them lower.
 
90gallon

can you put your tan size/equipment/critters in your "my info" so we can see what you have.

Anyone have any suggestions on how to lower my nitrate levels in a 90 gallon aquarium with live rock?
How old is your tank, what do you have in it?
 
- refugium with macros
- reduce feedings to every second day
- feed what the fish will consume in 3 minutes, no more
- pwc's
 
What fish/what are you feeding and how often?
 
ryguy said:
- refugium with macros
- reduce feedings to every second day
- feed what the fish will consume in 3 minutes, no more
- pwc's

Now that`s some good answers. LR will do nothing for your nitrates. It will do wonders for your ammonia and nitrites. Nitrates are the end result which can be taken care of by those fine answers that RYguy gave.
 
I have a 90 gallon corner tank that has been established for 5 months. Currently there is 1 clown fish and 1 angel along with 3 shrimps, hermit crabs and a couple of snails. As for my filtration I am using a wet/dry. These guys are getting fed every other day (frozen food; prime reef, one cube). I am doing pwc every two weeks but would still like to get the nitrate level lower. Any suggestions?
 
A wet dry is commonly called a nitrate factory. Not that they are bad because they do provide a purpose and that is to turn ammonia and nitrites into a less toxic end product called nitrates. They can only be removed by the 4 answers that were given by ryguy. They also make denitrators that I had for several years on my 55. They did seem to lower them but did not get rid of them because of the huge load that the wet dry was producing. I now have 0 nitrates in my 125 because of my refuge but not every one has one. This is what I do to maintain it is 1) feed every other day. Been doing this for eight years.2) PWC every week.3) Refugium does the rest. I can only tell you IME. It works for me.

By the way Welcome to AA :flasingsmile: :flasingsmile: :flasingsmile:
 
melosu58 said:
A wet dry is commonly called a nitrate factory. Not that they are bad because they do provide a purpose and that is to turn ammonia and nitrites into a less toxic end product called nitrates. They can only be removed by the 4 answers that were given by ryguy. They also make denitrators that I had for several years on my 55. They did seem to lower them but did not get rid of them because of the huge load that the wet dry was producing. I now have 0 nitrates in my 125 because of my refuge but not every one has one. This is what I do to maintain it is 1) feed every other day. Been doing this for eight years.2) PWC every week.3) Refugium does the rest. I can only tell you IME. It works for me.

By the way Welcome to AA :flasingsmile: :flasingsmile: :flasingsmile:
Not to butt in here. What all is in your refugium? I am putting one in next week and was wondering what people advise.
 
90gallon said:
Currently there is 1 clown fish and 1 angel along with 3 shrimps, hermit crabs and a couple of snails. These guys are getting fed every other day (frozen food; prime reef, one cube).
How large is the clown and angel? What happened to your 2 small clown fish & 1 porcipine puffer? If you just recently took back the puffer that was probably the biggest no3 contributor to your tank since they are extremely messy. What kind of angel did you get?

One cube sounds a little too much depending on their size. Do you thaw before adding to the tank? Do they consume it in less then a couple of minutes? Unless fully grown I’d think ½ a cube should be enough.

If using a wet/dry the pads should be rinsed weekly to keep waste down. What % do you do pwc every other week? With only 2 fish in a 90 gal once you get your no3 down with pwc just keeping up with pwc and keeping your filter pads clean should be enough.
 
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