Bio-Wheels & Nitrates

[suthernsalt]

I have a 100g setup basically FOWLR. I just recently added about 150lbs LR that had a few star polyps, mushrooms, and xenia. I run two Emperor 400 w/Bio-wheel and a Turboflotor 1000 skimmer for filtration. Tank had been setup w/o lr for 3 yrs when I bought it, I have had it almost a year, and the nitrates have never been below 20 even with 15g water changes no less than once a week. All the inhabitants eat and are active including polyps,xenia, and shroooms, and I have had no problem with loss. Fish include 4" Volitan Lion, 4" Lunare Wrasse, 3" Yellow Tang, 4" Blue Regal, 1.5" Niger Trigger, also have brittle star and about 20 blue leg hermits. My ammonia and nitrites are always 0. Now for my question, Could my problem be my bio-wheels, I have read that bio balls in a sump are a "nitrate factory", so I wondered if wheels could be too. If so should I take them out? Thanks. AA Rocks

 

[quarryshark]

The media on the biowheel can be a nitrate factory. Try removing the media and see if that doesn't help.
Wow, I am amazed that you are able to keep that trigger with corals and hermits. 8O How big is he?

 

[lando]

removing the biowheels may help. I would do one then wait a couple of weeks before removing the other one. You should also evaluate your feeding schedule. What do you feed and how often? What is your substrate?

 

[suthernsalt]

He is very small, he is about 1" to 1.5". We bought a 125g reef display from an LFS to replace our 75g reef, and took our rock and lighting out of the 75g and put in our 100g FO. There were a couple branches of swaying xenia, and a small patch of star polyps, and some mushroooms on the rocks. We knew the dangers of the trigger, but thought we would try and see. As he gets larger I imagine this will not work, but it is neat for now. If he starts eating corals, I will post to let you know how big he is and how long it took. As a side note we had a dogface puffer in the 100g when we put the rock in, and within maybe an hour we had to pull him out, because he was wearing the mushrooms out.

 

[suthernsalt]

We were feeding frozen brine shrimp once a day, but stopped to try to help with nitrates. We feed the lion frozen krill, which he eats every morsel. We feed the rest "Nutrafin Max" flake food once a day. We dose the tank once a week with "Combisan" trace elements.

 

[lando]

Make sure you thaw the krill first and then rinse it in RO/DI water. the juice from thawing is high in PO4 and Nitrates. Cut back on feedings, flake one day, skip a day, froozen, skip a day...
Do not worry about dosing trace elements. For a FOWLR and most reefs it is not needed. Is your substrate LS or CC?

 

[suthernsalt]

We have been thawing w/water from the tank and feeding krill one piece at a time. We don't feed the frozen brine shrimp anymore, only flake. The lion doesn't eat the flake, so he will only be eating every third day, will that be ok for him? Sorry I forgot to answer the substrate, I really don't know, it doesn't appear to be crushed coral. The closest thing I can find as far as looks is Arag-alive's "special grade sand", but I don't know for sure. We bought the tank already set up and the people had no idea what was in it.

 

[sdaccord03]

I removed the bio-wheel on my Eclipse Six gallon nano-reef and just use LR and LS and the tank has never given me a minute of trouble.

Jimmy

 

[saberry]

Try adding Kent Nitrate Sponge to your media sleeve. It takes a couple weeks but it will lower your nitrates. I've also heard very good things about Seachem Purigen, but haven't tried it yet.